n.
A school that trains teachers, chiefly for the elementary grades.
[Translation of French école normale (so called because the first school so named was intended as a model) : école, school + normal, normal.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.