kindergärtner

From German Kindergärtner (“kindergarten teacher”). The other sense is not used in German.

kindergärtner (plural kindergärtners or kindergärtner)

1. Alternative spelling of kindergartner (“person who teaches at a kindergarten”).
   • 1886, Angeline Brooks, “The Theory of [Friedrich] Fröbel’s Kindergarten System”, in The Kindergarten and the School, Springfield, Mass.: Milton Bradley Co., page 51:

     A few years ago Miss Blow, of St. Louis, took up, with the kindergärtners of that city, a study of “The Mother Play and Nursery Songs” in the German.

   • 1955 September 25, “Something Hidden: Report of the 1955 Joint Committee on Programme and Budget […]”, in Peter [Morton] Day, editor, The Living Church, volume CXXXI, number 13, Milwaukee, Wis.: Church Literature Foundation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 22, column 1:

     Six churches have been built, and we now have about 800 communicants and three men studying for the priesthood; four kindergärtner are now in training and hundreds of children are receiving Christian instruction.

   • 1989, Alastair Hannay, “Politics and [Paul] Feyerabend’s Anarchist”, in Marcelo Dascal, Ora Gruengard, editors, Knowledge and Politics: Case Studies in the Relationship Between Epistemology and Political Philosophy, Boulder, Colo.: Wesview Press, →ISBN, part 6 (The Antimethodologists), page 252:

     It is another to maintain that the expertise needed to decide how best to run kindergartens in terms of what goes on within their walls is to be found among those who have never ventured inside them. The justification of the enlistment of the layman as kindergärtner would require a denial that there is indeed a relevant expertise in this area and a corresponding redefinition of the area of competence that makes an adept of any naturally shrewd human being.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:kindergärtner.
2. Nonstandard spelling of kindergartner (“child who attends a kindergarten”).
   • 2004 October 12, Jod Kaftan, editor, The Simple Life (Cine-manga), Hamburg: Tokyopop, →ISBN, page 27:

     It’s like chasing a couple of kindergärtners around.

   • 2006 December 1, Rochelle LaMotte McDonald, “Year Round Education 1990-91”, in Educating Shelly, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, pages 24–25:

     The Kindergarten School had been dismantled, and our kindergärtners benefited by receiving the playground equipment. […] Kindergärtners and first graders were expected to learn the names of as many states as possible.

   • 2017 February 15, Angeline Haen, Sweet Wisdoms, Brunswick, Me.: Shanti Arts Publishing, →ISBN, “Ears and Eyes”, “Dad’s Eyes”, and “Dome Some Good” sections:

     This year’s batch of four-year-old kindergärtners on the school van I drive have an overwhelming case of ants in their pants. […] I have a new four-year-old kindergärtner who recently rode with me for the first time. […] One of my kindergärtners was quite upset when I picked her up one day because hadn’t had time to brush her teeth after eating lunch.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:kindergärtner.

• “kindergärtner, variant of kindergartener, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.