Where did the word school come from?

Question

I heard it came from the word schole, the Greek word meaning leisure. Which really doesn't make sense to me... can you explain this to me?

Answer 1

School traces back to Greek skhole "lectureplace," but earlier it meant "leisure," "learned discussion," and "study." This very old word appeared in English by 1000 AD and it has cognates in nearly all Celtic, Romance, and Teutonic languages. It became Latin schola "school," and then Old English scól.

Answer 2

From Latin 'schola', from Greek 'σχολείο'(scholeion) which means school.
There is another Greek word 'σχολή' (schole) meaning leisure time, rest and spare time.
Later the word 'schole' referred to conversations and the knowledge gained during free time and even later to the places where these conversations took place.

Answer 3

school (1)
"place of instruction," O.E. scol, from L. schola, from Gk. skhole "school, lecture, discussion," also "leisure, spare time," originally "a holding back, a keeping clear," from skhein "to get" + -ole by analogy with bole "a throw," stole "outfit," etc. The original notion is "leisure," which passed to "otiose discussion," then "place for such." The PIE base is *segh- "to hold, hold in one's power, to have" (see scheme). The L. word was widely borrowed, cf. O.Fr. escole, Fr. école, Sp. escuela, It. scuola, O.H.G. scuola, Ger. Schule, Swed. skola, Gael. sgiol, Welsh ysgol, Rus. shkola. Replaced O.E. larhus "lore house." Meaning "students attending a school" is attested from c.1300; sense of "school building" is first recorded c.1590. Sense of "people united by a general similarity of principles and methods" is from 1612; hence school of thought (1864). The verb is attested from 1573. School of hard knocks "rough experience in life" is recorded from 1912 (in George Ade); to tell tales out of school "betray damaging secrets" is from 1546. Schoolmarm is attested from 1831, U.S. colloquial; used figuratively for "patronizingly and priggishly instructing" from 1887.

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