lycée

ly·cée

L0302200 (lē-sā′)n. A French public secondary school.

[French, from Old French, lyceum, from Latin Lycēum; see lyceum.]

lycée

(lise; English ˈliːseɪ) n, pl lycées (lise; English ˈliːseɪz) (Education) a secondary school[C19: French, from Latin: Lyceum]

ly•cée

(liˈseɪ)

n., pl. -cées (-ˈseɪz; Fr. -ˈseɪ) a secondary school, esp. in France, maintained by the government. [1860–65; < French < Latin lycēum]

lycée

A secondary school in France.

Thesaurus

Noun

lycee - a school for students intermediate between elementary school and college; usually grades 9 to 12Gymnasium, lyceum, middle school, secondary schoolschool - an educational institution; "the school was founded in 1900"academy - a secondary school (usually private)trade school, vocational school - a secondary school teaching the skilled tradeshigh school, highschool, senior high, senior high school, high - a public secondary school usually including grades 9 through 12; "he goes to the neighborhood highschool"junior high, junior high school - a secondary school usually including 7th and 8th gradesprep school, preparatory school - a private secondary schoolpublic school - private independent secondary school in Great Britain supported by endowment and tuitiongrammar school - a secondary school emphasizing Latin and Greek in preparation for collegesecondary modern school - a former British secondary school emphasizing practical rather than academic educationcomposite school, comprehensive school - a large British or Canadian secondary school for children of all abilities

Lycée

a general secondary school in a number of Western European, Latin American, and African countries.

In France the lycée is the only general secondary school. It has a seven-year course of study and accepts students who have completed the five-year primary school. In their sixth year students are assigned to sections specializing in the humanities, natural sciences and mathematics, and engineering. In the senior class there are five sections each having its own curriculum: philosophy and philology, economics, mathematics and physics, biology, and engineering. In order to graduate, students must pass the baccalauréat examination.

In Italy lycées are divided into “classical” and “real” schools. A five-year course of study is offered to those who have completed a five-year primary and three-year intermediate school. In the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland, the three- or four-year upper divisions of the secondary schools are called fycées. In Belgium the lycée is a secondary school for girls, and in Poland it is a four-year school conferring a certificate upon graduation. In 19th- and early 20th-century Germany and Austria-Hungary, the lycée was a general secondary school for women.

In prerevolutionary Russia, lycées were secondary and higher schools for the privileged classes. They trained children of the nobility for civil service posts, chiefly in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The best-known fycées were the Tsarskoe Selo, or Alek-sandrovskii, Lycée, the Richelieu Lycée in Odessa, the Nezhin Lycée, and the Yaroslavl’, or Demidov, Lycée.