# academy

> English word · Noun · IPA /əˈkæd.ə.mi/ · frequency rank #2,605

## Definitions
1. The garden where Plato taught.
2. Plato's philosophical system based on skepticism; Plato's followers.
3. An institution for the study of higher learning; a college or a university; typically a private school.
4. A school or place of training in which some special art is taught.
5. A society of learned people united for the advancement of the arts and sciences, and literature, or some particular art or science.
6. The knowledge disseminated in an Academy.
7. Academia.
8. A body of established opinion in a particular field, regarded as authoritative.
9. A school directly funded by central government, independent of local control; a charter school.

## Etymology
From Middle English Achademia, achademy, Achademye, achadomye, from Classical Latin Acadēmī̆a /acadēmī̆a, from Ancient Greek Ἀκαδημία (Akadēmía), a grove of trees and gymnasium outside of Athens where Plato taught; from the name of the supposed former owner of that estate, the Attic hero Akademos. Doublet of academe, academia, and Akademeia.

## Easily confused with
- **academic** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/academic-vs-academy)
- **academia** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/academia-vs-academy)

## Common misspellings (10)
`aacdemy`, `acaddemy`, `academmy`, `academyy`, `acadeym`, `acadmey`, `acaedmy`, `accademy`, `acdaemy`, `caademy`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/academy