learned
adjUK /lɜːnd/ · US /lɝnd/
Etymology Past participle of learn.
1
Derived from experience; acquired by learning.
- Everyday behavior is an overlay of learned behavior over instinct.
- Derived terms
- learned helplessness, prelearned
learned
adjUK /ˈlɜːnɪd/ · US /ˈlɝnɪd/
Etymology From Middle English lerned, lernd, lernyd, equivalent to learn + -ed, which replaced the earlier lered (“taught”), from Old English (ġe)lǣred, past participle of lǣran (“to teach”). Learn formerly had the meaning “to teach”, which is now found only in nonstandard speech, as well as its standard meaning of “to learn”.
1
Having much learning, knowledgeable, erudite; highly educated.
- the learned Merlin, well could tell, / Vnder what coast of heauen the man did dwell […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- My learned Brother Cresswell directed the jury to make the calculation […]1854, Charles Edward Pollock, Lake v. Plaxton, 156 Eng. Rep. 412 (Exch.) 414; 10 Ex. 199, 200 (Eng.)
2 more examples
- The book opens with the Time Traveler dining with learned peers in late 1800s England, where he is trying to convince them that he has invented a time machine.2011 Feb, Jess Lourey, “A Pyramid Approach to Novel Writing”, in Writer, volume 124, number 2, pages 30–32:
- HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW used to be both the best-known poet in the English-speaking world and the most beloved, adored by the learned and the lowly ...2011 Spring, Jill Lepore, “How Longfellow Woke the Dead”, in American Scholar, volume 80, number 2, pages 33–46:
3
Scholarly, exhibiting scholarship.
- But our limits will not permit us to discuss the many important and curious questions respecting the science of government, to which this learned work invites attention.1831 March, anonymous author, “The History of the Doric Race”, in The Edinburgh Review, volume LIII, number CV (book review), page 130:
- Synonyms
- academical, clueful, cultivated, educated, erudite, in the know, knowledgeable, knowledgeful, knowsome, learned, savvy, scholarly, smart, sussed, switched on, up on, well-informed
- Antonyms
- ignorant, uncultivated, simple, innate
- Derived terms
- book-learned, learned borrowing, learned counsel, learnedism, learned judge, learned loan, learned loanword, learnedly, learned member, learnedness, learned profession, learned society, learned treatise, m'learned friends, my learned friend, my learned friends, semi-learned borrowing, semi-learned loan, semi-learned loanword
- Related terms
- intelligent, wily, wise, knowledge
- Hyponyms
- doctiloquent