schoolmarm

See also: school-marm

English

Alternative forms

• school marm, school-marm

Etymology

From school +‎ marm (“madam”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈskulˌmɑɹm/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

schoolmarm (plural schoolmarms)

1. (US, slang) A female teacher, especially one seen to be old-fashioned and extremely severe and strict.
   • 2013, Josh Rountree, Lon Prater, Alamo Rising:

     The schoolmarm came to an abrupt stop in her arithmetic quizzing, her face set into a pruny scowl that looked to be permanent.

2. (by extension) Someone who acts like a schoolmarm; a person acting harsh and stern.
   • 1941, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (motion picture), spoken by Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), RKO Radio Pictures:

     Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm?

3. (forestry) A tree with two or more trunks; a forked tree.
   • 1939, Howard O'Hagan, Tay John, McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page VIII:

     His brother Thomas, impaled upon the "schoolmarm tree," had opened his mouth to cry but snow and wind hurled back the words into his throat so that nothing emerges but white froth.

Translations

female teacher

• Finnish: opettajatar (fi)
• French: institutrice (fr) f, maîtresse d’école (fr) f, peau de vache (fr) f
• German: Lehrerin (de) f, Schullehrerin (de)
• Polish: belferka (pl) f

Verb

schoolmarm (third-person singular simple present schoolmarms, present participle schoolmarming, simple past and past participle schoolmarmed)

1. (transitive, US, slang) To discipline in the manner of a schoolmarm; to harshly reprimand or chide.
   • 1914, The Cosmopolitan, volume 56, Schlicht & Field, page 458:

     Well, our trouble in America is that we're being schoolmarmed to death. You can see it in any paper you pick up.

   • 2008, Irvin D. Yalom, Molyn Leszcz, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Basic Books, →ISBN:

     One client, the most mothering member of the group, did exactly that: she took him home, fed him, and schoolmarmed him through the application form.

   • 2022 November 3, “Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman: diary extracts packed with 'profound' observations”, in The Week UK‎^[1]:

     Kate Winslet is brilliant, but "there is never a moment where she finds out anything about her fellow actors"; even Emma Thompson, whom he clearly adores, is chided for "schoolmarming" on the set of Sense and Sensibility.