Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A teacher or lecturer at some universities who is not a regular faculty member.
- n. A lecturer or tour guide in a museum or cathedral.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Teaching.
- n. See privat-docent.
Wiktionary
- adj. Instructive; that teaches.
- n. A teacher or lecturer at some American colleges or universities.
- n. A tour guide at a museum, art gallery, historical site, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Serving to instruct; teaching.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a teacher at some universities
Etymologies
- From Latin docēntem, present participle of docēre ("to teach"). (Wiktionary)
- German Dozent, from Latin docēns, docent-, present participle of docēre, to teach; see dek- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As I recall the docent saying, there is no interior support or something like that.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » New Supreme Court Website and New URL
“The docent is the usual: a well-groomed woman in her fifties with impossibly blond hair and taut face.”
“Being a docent is a great way to join the mammoth site team and interact with the community.”
“A docent is a trained volunteer who serves as a tour guide and adds a special touch to the Waco Mammoth Site.”
“The docent was a lovely lady with a butterfly on her head (it was alive and just sat there), who enthusiastically gave me all kinds of facts on these incredible lepidopteras (latin for butterfly).”
“Our docent was a wonderfully tiny silver-haired lady aged perfectly with a librarian's wisdom who told us great antic dotes of the building.”
TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com
“It was an awesome opportunity to hear how an artist intreprets the work of another....without the canned "docent" speech of the artist's art history and accomplishments.”
What I Learned from Renee Stout's Artist Talk on Louise Bourgeois
“( "docent") (Tenure Track system) in the Department of Bioanalysis, charged with academic teaching (in Dutch), scientific research and carrying out scientific duties in the fields of pharmacokinetics and pharmaceutical care.”
“So my advice on your next trip to the museum is to kick back, have a couple of stiff ones, lock the docent in the broom closet and treat yourself to a few guffaws.”
The Wall Street Journal: Three Tips for Surviving the Art Museum
“As far as volunteering is concerned, I´ve just done a little bit here, working as a volunteer guide in a museum when they need an English-speaking docent.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘docent’.
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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museum words
words from work
provenance, accession, deaccession, conservation, preparator, registrar, curator, jargon, Oz clip, bell plate, stretcher, ornate and 115 more...
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Consider the Lobster
By David Foster Wallace
percussive, discursive, lugubrious, docent, assiduously, berm, wag, bonmot, imbroglio, telegraph, fissile, rube and 220 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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vmarinelli's Words
canard, gumption, inexorable, insouciance, inviolable, mordant, euphonious, sawbuck, carpe diem, pay dirt, adipocere, profligate and 496 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Words that delight me
tepid, perfunctory, trope, benign, inordinate, bewildering, ersatz, boon, delectable, apt, scuttlebutt, sequester and 398 more...
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Favourite Words
Just a bunch of words I like and wish I used more often in everyday speech.
adroit, soporific, ostensibly, prolific, auspicious, brio, mucilage, bromide, opprobrium, aplomb, invective, recalcitrant and 114 more...
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Thomas's Words
argus-eyed, chasmophile, extirpate, aperitif, outre, repartee, schadenfreude, insouciant, joie de vivre, callipygian, cavil, ad hominem and 147 more...
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richardr's Words
marmoreal, osteology, tyromancy, metalepsis, idioglossia, tapinosis, epicaricacy, carromancy, rogation, senex, aulic, gemütlichkeit and 279 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Word. Life.
awry, sinecure, levy, strait, drivel, blurb, anile, deacon, docent, teller, dint, indent
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tiffani's Words
commentariat, hibakusha, nonpareil, nonplussed, jerrybuilt, lodestar, soi-disant, rout, shtick, pols, supplicant, diffident and 49 more...
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New and interesting words
New and interesting to me, that is.
dégagé, sympatric, propinquity, etiolation, illation, docent, carious, deme, landrace, riant, entelechy, pleonasm
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D
desultory, devitalize, diaphanous, Dionysian, disaffected, dissemble, dissimulate, dissolute, duplicitous, dysgenic, depredation, doct and 25 more...
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Guides
sherpa, adalid, Seeing Eye dog, cicerone, itinerary, pilot, Sacagawea, beacon, tour guide, usher, shepherd, lighthouse and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for docent.
bilby "'A librarian docent accompanies every entrant at all times. Tonight, the docents are gone. What you are requesting is carte blanche access. Not even our cardinals enter alone.'"
- 'Angels and Demons', Dan Brown. Feb 28, 2008