Word.ws English Dictionary

unlearn

/ʌnˈləːn/US/ʌnˈlɝn/

unlearn verb: to discard the knowledge of.

Verb

unlearn (third-person singular simple present unlearns, present participle unlearning, simple past and past participle unlearned or unlearnt)

  1. (transitive) To discard the knowledge of.
    • It was another lesson from Fort Hare that I had to unlearn in Johannesburg.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 80
    • It is a language that, once learnt, I have been unable to unlearn.2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 231
  2. (transitive) To break a habit.

unlearn meaning in Urdu

unlearn in Urdu

بھلانا

Examples of unlearn in a sentence

  • Suckling is unlearnt behaviour in mammals.
  • When it comes to this creature you have to unlearn everything you've ever learned about physiology.
  • At the next level, we must practice transformationalism, which goes hand in hand with unlearning.

All 10 example sentences with unlearn

Forms of unlearn

third-person singular presentunlearns
present participleunlearning
past participleunlearned
pastunlearned
past participleunlearnt
pastunlearnt

Past tense of unlearn: unlearned or unlearnt

Origin of unlearn

From Middle English unlernen. By surface analysis, un- + learn.

Words formed from unlearn

Words that rhyme with unlearn

28 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about unlearn

What does unlearn mean?
Unlearn means to discard the knowledge of.
What is unlearn in Urdu?
Unlearn in Urdu is بھلانا. See Unlearn meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is unlearn?
Unlearn is a verb.
How do you pronounce unlearn?
Unlearn is pronounced /ʌnˈləːn/ (UK).
What is the past tense of unlearn?
The past tense of unlearn is unlearned.

Words near unlearn in the dictionary

  1. unleaked
  2. unleaking
  3. unleaky
  4. unleal
  5. unlean
  6. unlearn
  7. unlearnability
  8. unlearnable
  9. unlearnably
  10. unlearned
  11. unlearnedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unlearn (page history and authors); unlearn (Urdu Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unlearn.wav.

Cite this entry: “unlearn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unlearn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.