Meaning
Originally a personal religious teacher and spiritual guide in Hinduism, and by extension Sikhism and Buddhism; in general English now any influential mentor, coach, or widely cited expert in a field ('a design guru,' 'a management guru'). The expert sense can be admiring or faintly ironic when applied to self-styled authorities, while the religious sense remains specific and respectful, particularly in South Asian contexts. Respectful in religious contexts; casual to faintly mocking when attached to self-appointed experts. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Sanskrit via Hindi).
Origin
From Sanskrit guru, 'venerable, weighty,' used of a spiritual teacher, literally 'heavy' and built on an Indo-European root meaning 'heavy,' the metaphor being that a venerable teacher carries weight, gravity, and importance; the word passed into Hindi and other Indian languages as an ordinary word for 'teacher.' English adopted it through contact with India, but references disagree on the date: Merriam-Webster gives a first known use of 1613, while Etymonline first records it in 1806 in the archaic spelling 'gooroo.' The extended sense of a trusted mentor or guide appeared by 1940 in H. G. Wells's writing, and the 'recognized expert' sense around 1966, reportedly first applied in Canadian English to the media theorist Marshall McLuhan.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- gooroo
- guru ji
- gurukul
Usage Examples
- Our finance guru explained compound interest with a story about doubling grains of rice.
- The startup hired a branding guru to rename its flagship product.
- In his tradition, a guru and a student may study sacred texts together for decades.