Dictionary

kindergartner en · NOUN · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɪndəˌɡɑːtnə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈkɪndɚˌɡɑrtnɚ/ (General-American)

Etymology

From kindergarten + -er, with spelling influenced by German Kindergärtner (“kindergarten teacher”).

Meanings

1. A child who attends a kindergarten.
   • All 50 states have had school immunization requirements since the beginning of the 1980s, with incoming kindergartners needing shots to protect against diseases including measles, polio and tetanus. No states require a Covid-19 vaccine for schoolchildren. 2025 September 3, Deidre McPhillips, Shawn Nottingham, “Florida plans to end vaccine mandates statewide, including for schoolchildren”, in CNN:
   • I partnered the older kids with my kindergartners and let everyone get a taste of teaching or learning from someone different. 1993, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP (2019), page 90:

Forms

Deriveds

prekindergartner

Translations (13)

de Kindergartenschülerin (child who attends a kindergarten) · de Kindergärtlerin (child who attends a kindergarten) · mk заба́ваче (child who attends a kindergarten) · pl przedszkolak (child who attends a kindergarten) · de Kindergartenkind (child who attends a kindergarten) · ru детса́довка (child who attends a kindergarten) · de Kindergärtler (child who attends a kindergarten) · vo putajulan (child who attends a kindergarten) · sk škôlkar (child who attends a kindergarten) · de Kindergartenschüler (child who attends a kindergarten) · hu ovis (child who attends a kindergarten) · ru детса́довец (child who attends a kindergarten) · hu óvodás (child who attends a kindergarten)

kindergartner en · NOUN · etymology 2

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɪndəˌɡɑːtnə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈkɪndɚˌɡɑrtnɚ/ (General-American)

Etymology

From German Kindergärtner.

Meanings

1. (rare) A person who teaches at a kindergarten.
   • But the heart is generally larger than the creed, as was once strikingly evidenced to me by Louisa Frankenberg, a dear, devout old German kindergartner, who had learned the art of kindergartning [...] 1887, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Education in the Home, the Kindergarten, and the Primary School:
   • I am a kindergartner, teaching in the Harrington School, New Bedford, Mass., and am a reader of the “Kindergarten Primary Magazine.” 1919, Harriet L. Shafter, letter, in J. H. Schults, editor, The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine, volume XXXII, Manistee, Mich.: The Kindergarten Magazine Company, page 92, column 1:
   • [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau rightly insists that man’s education begins at his birth, and that what is acquired unconsciously far exceeds, in amount and importance, what is acquired consciously and through instruction.¹ […] ¹ This is a truth to which kindergærtners ought to give serious heed. 1898, Thomas Davidson, “Rousseau’s Educational Theories”, in Rousseau and Education According to Nature (Nicholas Murray Butler, editor, The Great Educators), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, section “Infancy”, page 107:
   • The book that laid the groundwork for this new ideology was written by a German kindergartner who had emigrated to America in the late 1860s. 1997, Barbara Beatty, Preschool Education in America: The Culture of Young Children:
   • She went to New York City in 1872 to train under German kindergartner Maria Kraus-Boelte[.] 1999, Richard J. Altenbaugh, Historical Dictionary of American Education, page 48:

Forms

Translations (13)

mk забава́чка (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · ru воспита́тель (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · pl przedszkolanka (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · ru воспита́тельница (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · vo putajulatidan (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · de Kindergärtner (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · mk забава́ч (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · fi lastentarhanopettaja (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · hu óvónő (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · de Kindergärtnerin (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · sl vzgojiteljica (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · mk воспитувачка (person who teaches at a kindergarten) · mk воспитувач (person who teaches at a kindergarten)