The AI-powered English dictionary
plural schoolmarms
(US, slang) A female teacher, especially one seen to be old-fashioned and extremely severe and strict. quotations
The schoolmarm came to an abrupt stop in her arithmetic quizzing, her face set into a pruny scowl that looked to be permanent.
2013, Josh Rountree, Lon Prater, Alamo Rising
(by extension) Someone who acts like a schoolmarm; a person acting harsh and stern. quotations examples
Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm?
1941, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (motion picture), spoken by Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), RKO Radio Pictures
(forestry) A tree with two or more trunks; a forked tree. quotations examples
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.
1939, Howard O'Hagan, Tay John, McClelland and Stewart, page VIII
third-person singular simple present schoolmarms, present participle schoolmarming, simple past and past participle schoolmarmed
(transitive, US, slang) To discipline in the manner of a schoolmarm; to harshly reprimand or chide. quotations
Well, our trouble in America is that we're being schoolmarmed to death. You can see it in any paper you pick up.
1914, The Cosmopolitan, volume 56, Schlicht & Field, page 458
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.
2008, Irvin D. Yalom, Molyn Leszcz, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Basic Books
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.
2022 November 3, “Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman: diary extracts packed with 'profound' observations”, in The Week UK