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.
   • 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...1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 29.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 97
   • What you needed, I reckon, was less book learning and more bread-and-butter 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

   Synonyms:

   book knowledge, booklore, reading knowledge