disciple

From Middle English disciple, discipul, from Old English discipul (“disciple, scholar”), from Latin discipulus (“pupil, learner”). Later influenced or superseded in Middle English by Old French deciple.

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈsaɪ.pəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪpəl
• Hyphenation: dis‧ci‧ple

disciple (plural disciples)

1. A person who learns from another, especially one who then teaches others.
2. An active follower or adherent of someone, or some philosophy etc.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 9:10:

     And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 4, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.

3. (Ireland) A wretched, miserable-looking man.

• student

• discipleship
• disciplic
• discipline

• apostle

disciple (third-person singular simple present disciples, present participle discipling, simple past and past participle discipled)

1. (religion, transitive) To convert (a person) into a disciple.
2. (religion, transitive) To train, educate, teach.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     fraile youth is oft to follie led, / Through false allurement of that pleasing baite, / That better were in vertues discipled […]

   1. (Christianity, certain denominations) To routinely counsel (one's peer or junior) one-on-one in their discipleship of Christ, as a fellow affirmed disciple.
      • 2026 February 18, Diana Chandler, “Church of England abandons pursuit of spiritual blessings for same-sex couples”, in mbcpathway.com‎^[1]:

        Most recently, messengers to the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting passed the resolution On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family, which resolves among many beliefs that “we encourage churches to disciple their members in a biblical view of marriage, sexuality, parenting, and the sanctity of life.”

• discipler

• “disciple”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “disciple”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Inherited from Old French deciple, borrowed from Latin discipulus.

• IPA^(key): /di.sipl/

• Audio:

  (file)

disciple m (plural disciples)

1. disciple

• “disciple”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012