book learning

noun

1. knowledge acquired by reading books, as distinguished from that obtained through observation and experience.

2. formal education.

   She thought that common sense was just as important as book learning.

book-learning

noun

1. knowledge gained from books rather than from direct personal experience

2. formal education

Other Word Forms

• book-learned adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of book-learning¹

First recorded in 1580–90

Example Sentences

But I think his years of experience may be blinding him to the reality of how new hires with big ideas and fancy book-learning are perceived in the workplace.

From Washington Post

He is an intellectual at a time when many deem book-learning dangerous and cheap.

From Washington Post

Therefore, Signore Simplicio, give up on that idea and that hope that you have, that there can be men so much better educated, so much more sophisticated, and with so much more book-learning than the rest of us that they can, in defiance of nature, turn falsehood into truth.

From Literature

In a society where a sharp line was drawn between gentlemen, who had soft hands, and craftsmen and labourers, whose hands were hard, Bacon insisted that effective knowledge would require cooperation between gentlemen and craftsmen, between book-learning and workshop experience.

From Literature

In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is furious to find Michael Cassio, ‘a great arithmetician’, whose knowledge of warfare is all book-learning, has been promoted ahead of him.

From Literature

Related Words

• culture 
• discipline 
• improvement 
• information 
• learning 
• literacy 
• scholarship 
• schooling 
• science 
• study 
• teaching 
• training