For a long time, the word education has many concepts. The description (definition) of the word education in Modern Chinese Dictionary includes two aspects. First, it expresses the macro concept of education-"the whole process of cultivating a new generation to engage in social life". However, it uses the word training when describing the concept of education, and it uses the word education when expressing the concept of training-"long-term education and training according to a certain purpose", which is suspected of circular description (definition). Secondly, it expresses the basic idea of education-"teaching, enlightening", but at the same time it expresses teaching as "educational guidance", which is also suspected of circular description (definition). When defining, the defined item cannot be directly or indirectly included in the defined item, otherwise a circular definition error will be formed. In this regard, the description of the word education in Xinhua Dictionary has no circular definition. The description of the word education in Xinhua Dictionary is also divided into two aspects. One is "social activities with the direct purpose of influencing people's physical and mental development", which clearly expresses the macro concept of education. The second is "reasoning", which distinguishes education from training activities, probably to express the basic concept of education. However, this statement cannot distinguish education from activities such as study, research and publicity, because these activities can also make people understand the truth. Therefore, it is debatable to express the basic concept of education in this way.

The macro concept of education described in Xinhua Dictionary and Modern Chinese Dictionary is also called education in a broad sense. Accordingly, education in a narrow sense generally refers to education organized by specialized institutions. School education includes all kinds of training activities such as education, training, learning and financial aid, so school education also belongs to the category of macro education. Just like education, it is difficult to form a unified definition by integrating many concepts in the same field. Therefore, when people use or understand the word education in different occasions and contexts, they need to pay special attention to its exact meaning.