book learning
book learning is the alternative form of book-learning.
Meaning of book-learning
Noun
book-learning (uncountable)
- 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
- Synonyms:
- book knowledge, booklore, reading knowledge
Questions about book learning
- What is book learning the alternative form of?
- Book learning is the alternative form of book-learning.
Words near book learning in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: book learning (page history and authors); book-learning (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “book learning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/book_learning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.