A scholar is either a student or someone who has achieved a "mastery" of some academic discipline. In British usage, a scholar is equally likely to be a schoolchild (usually a boy) or a learned person. In American usage, the "schoolchild" meaning is rare. The word sometimes carries an connotation making it remote from modern America; it can aptly be used to describe learned persons of other times or places, but rarely is it used for the most educated persons of the modern United States.
