Etymology with Anthonette – September 2026
To all of you wordsmiths: the word curriculum may come into play on Back to School Night or it may come up in your job search when you are asked to provide your curriculum vitae, or CV.
According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, one’s curriculum vitae is their “course of life” and stems from both classical and New Latin where the original root meant “to run.” You Spanish speakers will recognize it also in the word correr. The words currency, courier, and corridor also originate from the classical root currere.
Eventually, the sole word curriculum came to mean “course,” as in a race course, though it is now used almost exclusively to mean “courses offered by an educational institution.” As this word is a noun, it can be made plural by adding “s” to get curriculums, though it can also be pluralized as curricula.
In the case of an educational institution, the curriculums are the items of study—vocabulary, books, math units, lesson plans, etc. Stay the course and happy studying.
By Anthonette Klinkerman
