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unteach

American  
[uhn-teech] / ʌnˈtitʃ /

verb (used with object)

untaught, unteaching
  1. to cause to be forgotten or disbelieved, as by contrary teaching.

  2. to cause to forget or disbelieve something previously taught.


unteach British  
/ ʌnˈtiːtʃ /

verb

  1. to cause to disbelieve (teaching)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of unteach

First recorded in 1525–35; un- 2 + teach

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

"You are not born a racist, it's taught by your parents, your environment, school. We want to unteach it, to use the same institutions reproducing stereotypes to turn them around."

From BBC Jul. 12, 2020

Whatever he learned in law school, no one could unteach him, whether he practiced or not.

From Seattle Times May 14, 2017

With the intimacy avoiders—the screamers, she has to unteach them the bad habits first.

From Slate Nov. 5, 2013

It’s easier to teach people than unteach them.”

From New York Times May 28, 2011

Is not this to place him outside the conditions of existence, and to unteach him that liberty for which we pretend he is being prepared?...

From Crime and Its Causes by Morrison, William Douglas

Advocates say that left untaught, teens and young adults may turn to questionable sources, such as TikTok or YouTube videos.

From Seattle Times Oct. 10, 2023

Weight machines, by design, entirely remove skill from the equation: They are intended to offer the untaught user a way to lift.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 10, 2016

Norfolk describes the local farmers as untrained, untaught amateur engineers and talented landscape architects, who cut drainage ditches, smooth fields and dam streams.

From Time Jul. 28, 2015

All your pretty girls are untaught: sister Lizzie, of course; Emma with her reading lists; imbecilic Catherine Morland.

From The Guardian Jan. 26, 2013

Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I was mistaken.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Early impressions are the most lasting, and the hardest part of school work for the teacher is the unteaching of false ideas, and the correcting of imperfectly formed and partially understood ideas.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881 by Various

He says, "The conscientious study would be useful to humanity by teaching the use and unteaching the abuse of the Malthusian system, 536 whereby the family is duly limited to the necessities of society."

From The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Wright, Thomas

After that Shorty returned to the bunk house, and the Virginian knew that the boy had learned his lesson of discontent from Trampas with a thoroughness past all unteaching.

From The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains by Wister, Owen

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