English edit

Etymology edit

From school +‎ -ish. Compare Dutch schools (scholastic, methodical), German schulisch (schoolish, scolastic).

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

schoolish (comparative more schoolish, superlative most schoolish)

  1. Of or pertaining to school; scholastic.
    • 1916, Educational review:
      [...] it has studied the trend of the school, but not the trend of business, its leadership has been scholastic, not commercial. Today, commercial education finds itself of the school, schoolish, and not of the business house, business-like.
    • 2009, Paul Smeyers, Marc Depaepe, Educational Research: The Educationalization of Social Problems:
      By assessing this situation we have come to consider the dimensions of pedagogical–didactic interaction and communication that we, together with Antonio Viñao Frago (1996) and others, consider to be just as essential for examining the particular nature of schoolish institutions.
    • 2010, Laurie MacGillivray, Literacy in Times of Crisis: Practices and Perspectives:
      As a struggling student, Lo was fed up with “schoolish practices” and refused to perform for the sake of pleasing her teachers.
  2. Characteristic of school rather than real life; pedantic, pedagogical, etc.
    • 1987, Michel Leiris, Nights as day, days as night:
      Its structure, which could strike one as derived from an arithmetic or geometry lesson, is schoolish, as is its content...
    • 2008, Arthur T. Costigan, Teaching Authentic Language Arts in a Test-Driven Era:
      When we reflect on it, many of the things we teachers do are artificial and schoolish. They look very different from how real readers, writers, and speakers operate.

Derived terms edit