Other forms: seminars
A seminar is a small class where everybody is expected to talk. Ten students round a table, one book they have all read this week, and a tutor asking questions instead of delivering answers.
It is the opposite arrangement to a lecture, where one person speaks and two hundred listen, and a university timetable sets the two side by side. Outside university the word means a short training session or a public talk: a half-day seminar on tax, a sales seminar in a hotel room with bad coffee. It builds compounds easily — seminar room, seminar group, seminar paper. Do not confuse it with a seminary, which is a college for training priests. The two words share a root and nothing else.
1nounseminarA small university class based on discussion of a set text or topic.
“The Tuesday seminar has nine students and runs for two hours.”
2nounshortA short meeting or course in which an expert teaches a group about a subject.
“The bank runs a free seminar on mortgages every spring.”
seminar is a class.
Seminar came into English from German Seminar, the name German universities gave their discussion classes, and that came from Latin sēminārium, built on sēmen, 'seed'. The picture underneath the word is a bed of seedlings being brought on. Seminary grew from the same Latin word, which is why the two look so alike.
Proto-Indo-European
*seh₁-
Latin
sēminārium
German
Seminar
English, today
seminar
Built from
From German Seminar, from Latin sēminārium, from sēmen (“seed”). Compare seminary.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA