book-learning

English

Alternative forms

• book learning

Noun

book-learning (uncountable)

1. Theoretical or academic knowledge acquired by reading books or through formal education, as opposed to practical or empirical knowledge of real life and the real world, gained through experience, or natively as street smarts, common sense, or intuition.
   • 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, , →OCLC, chapter 29, page 97:

     They are like some wise men, who, learning to know each planet by its Latin name, have quite forgotten such small heavenly constellations as Charity, Forbearance, Universal Love, and Mercy, […] and who, looking upward at the spangled sky, see nothing there but the reflection of their own great wisdom and book-learning.

   • 1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XI, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 117:

     What you needed, I reckon, was less book learning and more bread-and-butter learning.

   • 1909 September, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “A Wedding at the Stone House”, in Anne of Avonlea, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC, page 359:

     That's what college ought to be for, instead of for turning out a lot of B.A.s, so chock full of book-learning and vanity that there ain't room for anything else.

Usage notes

• Often used with the negative connotation that such knowledge is incomplete or unhelpful.

Synonyms

• book knowledge
• booklore
• reading knowledge

Translations

See also

• book smart
• book-teaching