The word “kindergarten” comes from the German word of the same spelling that literally means “children’s garden.” German nouns are generally capitalized so it can be confusing in English to know whether the word should also be capitalized.
Is Kindergarten Capitalized?
Generally, the word “kindergarten” is not capitalized because it is a common noun in the English language.
There are cases when “kindergarten” should be capitalized. The most common case is when it is the first word in a sentence. In that context, a word always has to be capitalized so “kindergarten” would definitely be capitalized.
The second circumstance comes when a word is part of a title or proper name. If we are talking about Kindergarten Stakes, the Australian club we have to capitalize the word “kindergarten,” as it’s part of the proper name for an organization. A similar case will happen in most schools. If we are talking about the name of a specific kindergarten, such as “Emily’s Kindergarten,” then we should capitalize the word.
