nursery school
- noun
- /ˈnɜr.sə.ri skuːl/
- Many parents choose to enroll their toddlers in a nursery school to prepare them for kindergarten.
- nursery school child
- went to nursery school
- learns in nursery school
So my step mum got Sophie out of nursery school.
- So my step mum got Sophie out of nursery school.
- It's all recess in nursery school, but they're drawing and they took the kids that really like to draw and they started giving them little gold stars on their drawings.
- He was in my daughter's nursery school class and was in her grade for seven years.
- And now it starts and I was guilty when my son was five years old going to a nursery school.
Examples
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She'd sent him to private schools in town since nursery school.
Fiction book (1998) -
Janice works at the nursery school.
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It's just three hours a day at a nursery school.
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Um, I help run a nursery school.
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If these nursery schools are not funded as schools, they will close.
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The primary school students who had attended a nursery school used these skills more frequently.
Academic text (2011) -
Ever since nursery school, every single waking moment of every single day has been scheduled.
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Sessions were conducted during the morning "circle" activity at a nursery school program for children with speech delays.
Academic text (2001) -
Rohlen makes a similar point: that what is taught and learned in nursery school is social order.
Academic text (1991) -
She's an extraordinarily gifted nursery school teacher.
Synonyms
A class for young children to prepare for primary school
A school for children ages three to five to learn and play
A place where young children are looked after and learn before starting school
A school or class for children before they start primary school
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a school for very young children' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'nursery' (a facility providing care/early education) with 'school' (an institution for education). This noun+noun compositional pattern is common and has clear cross-linguistic parallels, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Nursery school comes from the word nursery, which means a place where young plants or animals are cared for. Think of a small garden where young things are looked after and helped to grow. A nursery school does the same for little children, so it means a place to care for and 'prepare' them before primary school.