mentor

A mentor is the main person you rely on to give you advice and guidance, especially in your career.

Mentor can also be used as a verb meaning to act as a mentor, as in I mentor two of my students. 

If you have a mentor, you are the mentee.

Example: It feels strange to me that I’m now more famous than my mentor—I wouldn’t be where I am without her.

Even your mentor might not have known that the word mentor comes from a proper name—though a fictional one. In the Odyssey, Mentor is a loyal adviser of Odysseus entrusted with the care and education of his son Telemachus. The first records of mentor used in English as a noun referring to an advisor come from the 1700s. Mentor wasn’t popularly used as a verb until the 1900s. (Similar to most mentor-mentee relationships, mentee is much younger—the first records of it come from the 1960s.)

The word mentor is most commonly used in professional and academic contexts. In academia, a mentor is usually a teacher, especially a professor, and their mentee is typically a student. A mentor may act as a model for the mentee’s career and help them decide which path to pursue. The same thing goes for professional mentor-mentee relationships, in which the mentor is usually a boss or a person who holds a more senior position. Because mentors draw on their experience to mentor mentees, mentors are usually older. In all cases, the two words imply a close relationship based on the mentee’s respect for the mentor’s wisdom and experience and the mentor’s recognition of the mentee’s dedication and potential.

What are some other forms related to mentor?

• mentorship (noun)

What are some words that share a root or word element with mentor? 

• mentee

What are some words that often get used in discussing mentor?

• student
• teacher
• professor
• boss
• craft
• learn
• example
• apprentice
• experience

Mentor is typically used by mentees when referring to such a relationship.

A basketball coach should be a coach, a teacher, a mentor, a good example, a counselor, a positive influence, someone players trust, someone they can learn life skills from, and someone who will support and believe in them. If this ain’t for you, then neither is coaching.

— William Payne 🧩 (@TweetsbyCoachP) May 27, 2020

you know those scenes in movies where a cool older mentor gives their mentee a stack of albums that’ll “change their life” or whatever? i wanna do that but with a sleeve of burned CDs & be like “autobiography – simpson. metamorphosis – duff. let go – lavigne. misundaztood—

— Jill Gutowitz (@jillboard) January 31, 2020

I love mentoring young kids! It's an amazing feeling when you see them finally getting it! Mentoring= coaching+teaching+loving x working

— Ed Geth (@CoachGeth) October 21, 2014

Is mentor used correctly in the following sentence?

When you mentor someone, it involves more than just teaching and giving advice—it also requires listening.