[f. L. ēducāt- ppl. stem of ēducāre to rear, bring up (children, young animals), related to ēdūcĕre to lead forth (see EDUCE), which is sometimes used nearly in the same sense.] trans. or absol.
† 1. To rear, bring up (children, animals) by supply of food and attention to physical wants. Obs.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 292. The Epirotan and Siculian horses are not to be despised, if they were well bred and educated.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., 292. A boy of a good habit of body, with large veines, well and freely educated.
1690. [see EDUCATED].
1818. [see 2].
2. To bring up (young persons) from childhood, so as to form (their) habits, manners, intellectual and physical aptitudes.
1618. Bolton, Florus, I. i. 3. Himselfe delighting in the Rivers and Mountaines, among which he had beene educated.
1818. Cruise, Digest, VI. 336. A devise … to the intent that with the profits he should educate his daughter.
1839. trans. Lamartine’s Trav. East, 168/1. The principal amongst them [Greeks] have their children educated in Hungary.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 40. The youth of a people should be educated in forms and strains of virtue.
b. To instruct, provide schooling for (young persons).
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. i. 84. Do you not educate youth at the Charg-house on the top of the Mountaine?
1863. Mary Howitt, trans. F. Bremer’s Greece, I. i. 13. It has educated, and it educates to this day, a great portion of the Athenian female youth of all classes.
1863. A. Tylor, Educ. & Manuf., 40. It costs 8d. per week to educate a child.
3. To train (any person) so as to develop the intellectual and moral powers generally.
1849. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 198. In my eyes the question is not what to teach, but how to Educate.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 120. Elder men, if they want to educate others, should begin by educating themselves.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 10 July, 4/2. Our artists are not educated at all, they are only trained.
4. To train, discipline (a person, a class of persons, a particular mental or physical faculty or organ), so as to develop some special aptitude, taste or disposition. Const. to, also inf.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess. Hist., Wks. (Bohn), I. 11. And the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful performances. Ibid. (1847), Repr. Men., v. Shaks., ibid. I. 359. Our ears are educated to music by his rhythm.
1867. Disraeli, in Scotsman, 30 Oct. I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate,—if not too arrogant to use such a phrase,—our party.
Mod. He is educating himself to eat tomatoes.
b. To train (animals).
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxix. 389. The dogs of Smith’s Sound are educated more thoroughly than any of their more southern brethren.
1859. J. Lang, Wand. India, 2. No horses, except those educated in India, would crawl into these holes cut out of the earth and rock.
