syllabus

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin syllabus (“list”), which arose as a misprint, its accusative plural syllabos appearing in place of sittybas in a 1470s edition of Cicero's “Ad Atticum” IV.5 and 8. The corrupt form was influenced by the stem of Ancient Greek συλλαμβάνω (sullambánō, “put together”), the source of σῠλλᾰβή (sullabḗ, “syllable”); the true etymon is σιττύβα (sittúba, “parchment label, table of contents”) of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪləbəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: syl‧la‧bus
• Rhymes: -ɪləbəs

Noun

syllabus (plural syllabi or syllabuses)

1. (education) A summary of topics which will be covered during an academic course, or a text or lecture.
   • 2019 November 23, A Falun Dafa practitioner in Australia, “Eliminating Attachments While Helping Coordinate a Minghui School”, in Minghui‎^[1]:

     In the first half of the year, teachers attended the training workshop for the new K-10 Chinese syllabus. In July, almost all the teachers attended the teacher training courses provided by OCAC.

   • 2020, Abi Daré, The Girl With The Louding Voice, Sceptre, page 183:

     ‘I checked online for a beginner syllabus,’ she say. ‘A syllabus is a plan for how we would work, what I can teach you.’

2. (law) The headnote of a reported case; the brief statement of the points of law determined prefixed to a reported case.

Related terms

• syllable

Translations

summary of topics

• Armenian: կոնսպեկտ (hy) (konspekt)
• Basque: syllabus
• Bulgarian: програ́ма (bg) f (prográma)
• Catalan: temari m, currículum (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 教學大綱／教学大纲 (jiàoxué dàgāng), 教学大纲 (jiàoxué dàgāng)

• Danish: studieplan c
• Dutch: syllabus (nl) m, reader (nl) m
• Finnish: oppisisältö, kurssin sisältö
• French: programme (fr) m, syllabus (fr) m, plan de cours m, sommaire (fr) m
• Georgian: სილაბუსი (silabusi)
• German: Lehrplan (de) m, Studienprogramm n, Lehrprogramm n, Syllabus m
• Greek: περίληψη (el) f (perílipsi)
• Hebrew: סילבוס (he) m (silabus)
• Icelandic: námsáætlun f
• Indonesian: silabus (id)
• Italian: programma (it) ?
• Japanese: シラバス (shirabasu), 教案 (きょうあん, kyōan)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Polish: program nauczania m
• Portuguese: programa (pt) m, ementa (pt) f
• Russian: уче́бная програ́мма f (učébnaja prográmma), уче́бный план m (učébnyj plan), план (обуче́ния) (ru) m (plan (obučénija)), си́ллабус (ru) m (síllabus)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: на́ста̄внӣ про̀грам m

  Roman: nástāvnī prògram m

• Slovak: sylaby predmetu ?, osnovy predmetu ?, informačný list predmetu ?
• Spanish: temario m
• Swedish: studieplan n
• Tagalog: talapaksaan
• Turkish: izlek (tr), izlence (tr), müfredat (tr)
• Ukrainian: програ́ма f (prohráma), навча́льна програ́ма f (navčálʹna prohráma)
• Welsh: maes llafur m

---

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈsyl.la.bus/, [ˈs̠ʏlːʲäbʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈsil.la.bus/, [ˈsilːäbus]

Noun

syllabus m (genitive syllabī); second declension

1. (Medieval Latin, New Latin) list, register, syllabus

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	syllabus	syllabī
Genitive	syllabī	syllabōrum
Dative	syllabō	syllabīs
Accusative	syllabum	syllabōs
Ablative	syllabō	syllabīs
Vocative	syllabe	syllabī

References

• “syllabus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press