knowledge acquired by reading books, as distinguished from that obtained through observation and experience.
formal education.
She thought that common sense was just as important as book learning.
knowledge gained from books rather than from direct personal experience
formal education
First recorded in 1580–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In supple pentameter, Shakespeare explores the difference between the book learning the young men meant to engage in and the learning that emerges, despite their plans, from “the prompting eyes of beauty’s tutors.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 27, 2023
And while that book learning was fine and all, neither school taught Berhalter the subject he really wanted to study, which was soccer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2022
“While book learning was the star of the show up until now, practical, hands-on learning has come into the picture.”
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2020
For medical students, this is the point at which, after two years of book learning, we rotate through hospital clerkships that give us our first experience of delivering hands-on care to inpatients.
From Washington Post ● May 1, 2020
“I—I’m dumb. About book learning, I mean. Do you think you could teach me anything without—bawling me out?”
From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham
He is an intellectual at a time when many deem book-learning dangerous and cheap.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2022
It was too ambitious, lurid with “a vile overdaubing with a coat of book-learning and mysticism.”
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 22, 2019
They did not know much about book-learning, but they knew good building materials when they saw them.
From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014
Rush, and Rush fans, are long used to being the butt of the joke – kimono-wearing, book-learning, heavily moustachioed Canadian prog-rock overlords never seemed likely to be at the cutting edge of cool.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 24, 2011
“Ah, them book-learning chaps. They don’t know alL How’m ever, 'tis time us do be stepping along.”
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
