sekolah menengah atas

Indonesian

Etymology

Compound of sekolah menengah (“high school (US), secondary school (UK)”) +‎ atas (“high”), from

• Calque from English upper +‎ secondary school, or
• Calque from Japanese 高等 (kōtō, “higher”) +‎ 中学校 (chūgakkō, “secondary (middle) school”). The post-war Japanese term is 高等学校 (kōtōgakkō). Doublet of sekolah menengah tinggi.
• Calque from Chinese 高級中學／高级中学 (gāojí zhōngxué, “senior high school”).

Pronunciation

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /səˌkolah ˌmənəŋah ˈatas/ [səˌko.lah ˌmə.nə.ŋah ˈa.t̪as]
• Rhymes: -atas
• Syllabification: se‧ko‧lah me‧ne‧ngah a‧tas

Noun

sekolah menengah atas

1. (education) senior high school (US), upper secondary school (UK), abbreviated as SMA.

   Synonyms: (dated) sekolah lanjutan tingkat atas; (dated) sekolah menengah tinggi; (dated) sekolah menengah umum; (dated) sekolah menengah umum atas

Usage notes

This term was used from 1950 to 1961 and from 1968 to 1993 for general upper secondary education. Other similar terms are sekolah menengah tinggi (1942-1946), sekolah menengah umum atas (1946-1950), sekolah lanjutan tingkat atas (1963-1967) and sekolah menengah umum (1994-2004). This term has been in use since 2004 until today.

Further reading

• “sekolah menengah atas” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.