teach
/ˈtiːt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.67 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To pass on knowledge generally, especially as one's profession; to act as a teacher.
Intransitive verb
verb
To cause (someone) to learn or understand (something).
verb
To cause to know the disagreeable consequences of some action.
Example Sentences
- "Can you teach me to sew? Can you teach sewing to me?"
- "She used to teach at university."
- "The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;[…]. Now she had come to look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure to behold."
- "Deep Blue taught us a great deal about the power of the human mind precisely because it could not reproduce the intuitive and logical leaps of Kasparov’s mind. A truly synthetic cell, built from scratch or even from preexisting components, will be a cell without ancestry, and it, too, will teach us a great deal about the underlying complexities of life without actually reproducing them."
- "In Episode 3, Gia incorporates very distinct and strong gestures as she teaches Havelock the phrase, "Unte kowlting gut, to pochuye ke?" ("And everything will be okay, understand?")"
- "I'll teach you to make fun of me!"
Etymology
From Middle English techen, from Old English tǣċan (“to show, declare, demonstrate; teach, instruct, train; assign, prescribe, direct; warn; persuade”), from Proto-West Germanic *taikijan, from Proto-Germanic *taikijaną (“to show”), from Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ- (“to show”). Cognate with Scots tech, teich (“to teach”), German zeigen (“to show, point out”), zeihen (“accuse, blame”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌷𐌰𐌽 (gateihan, “to announce, declare, tell, show, display”), Latin dīcō (“speak, say, tell”), Ancient Greek δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “show, point out, explain, teach”), Sanskrit दिशति (diśati, “to point out, show, tell, teach”). More at token.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *deyḱ-, techen, tǣċan, *taikijan, *taikijaną
Usage
Inflected Forms
teaches (present, singular)
teaching (participle, present)
taught (participle, past)
taught (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
taught (first person, past)
teachest (archaic, present)
taught (past, second person)
taughtest (archaic, past)
teacheth (archaic, present)
taught (past, singular)
Derived Forms
Phrases
co-teach
don't teach your grandmother how to milk ducks
don't teach your grandmother to steal sheep
don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
give a man a fish and you feed him for a day
teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime
home teach
pre-teach