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learn Definition

learn (lʉrn)

transitive verb learned or Chiefly Brit.learnt, learn′·ing

  1. to get knowledge of (a subject) or skill in (an art, trade, etc.) by study, experience, instruction, etc.
  2. to come to know to learn what happened
  3. to come to know how to learn to swim
  4. to fix in the mind; memorize
  5. to acquire as a habit or attitude to learn humility
  6. to teach: now dialectal or otherwise nonstandard

Etymology: ME lernen, to learn, teach < OE leornian (akin to Ger lernen) < WGmc *liznōn (akin to Goth laisjan, to teach) < IE base *leis-, track, furrow > L lira, furrow

intransitive verb

  1. to gain knowledge or skill
  2. to be informed; hear (of or about)

learn Related Forms
learn′·able adjective learn′er noun
learn Synonyms

learn

v.

  1. To acquire mentally

    acquire, receive, imbibe, get, absorb, assimilate, digest, take in, drink in, pick up, read, master, ground oneself in, peruse, con, pore over, study, gain information, learn by heart, memorize, be taught a lesson, become well-versed in, soak in, collect one's knowledge, improve one's mind, build one's background, get up on*, get the signal*; see also study 1.

  2. To find out

    discover, ascertain, discern, uncover, unearth, find out, determine, hear, see, read, detect, come to know, come upon, chance on, chance upon, stumble upon, get wind of*, get wise to*; see also discover.

learn, as considered here, implies a finding out of something, often without conscious effort I learned of their marriage from a friend; ascertain implies a finding out with certainty, as by careful inquiry, experimentation, or research I ascertained the firm's credit rating; determine stresses intention to establish the facts exactly, often so as to settle something in doubt to determine the exact denotation of a word; discover implies a finding out, either by chance or by exploration or study, of something already existing or known to others to discover a star, to discover a plot; unearth, in its figurative sense, implies a bringing to light, as by diligent search, of something that has been concealed, lost, or forgotten to unearth old documents, to unearth a secret

learn Usage Examples

Object

  • disability: Dawn says she had a friend who had a teenage daughter with learning disabilities who was helped by Mencap.
  • difficulty: They grow up with mild or moderate learning difficulties.
  • outcome: A case study approach was used to determine the effect of the course design on student learning outcomes.
  • lesson: However, do we take time in the aftermath to learn the lessons such outbreaks teach us?
  • environment: This facility will offer an outstanding learning environment for our students.
  • skill: I like to think Iâd try to keep improving myself in any way I could by learning new skills.

Used with why or when

  • what: Also learn what are the limitations of all job opening sites on the Internet.
  • How: Learn How To Make the Platform Produce square shoulders all around the work piece by screwing a stop to the platform's auxiliary deck.
  • why: Learn why millions of people all around the world have become addicts.. .
  • where: Last week we learned where Charles Kennedy stands on some of these issues.

Infinitive complement

  • swim: Sharon turned 40 and conquered her goals She's lost a stone, learned to swim and toned up!
  • read: About Suzanne Enoch A lifelong lover of books, Suzanne Enoch has been writing them since she learned to read.
  • speak: At school he studied the bible and history and learned to speak Latin, in top classes pupils had to speak Latin.
  • appreciate: I learned to appreciate the depth of the human inside the helmet.
  • live: Now Patricia is learning to live with other apes for the first time.
  • listen: All you need to do is learn to listen to what they are telling you.

Adjective complement

  • more: Do you want to learn more about service audit?
  • English: WEBLINKS WEBLINKS WEBLINKS WEBLINKS WEBLINKS WEBLINKS More than 60,000 people come to the UK every year to learn English.

Preposition: from

  • mistake: We will need to relearn out how to govern ourselves with justice and equity, learning from the mistakes of the current age.
  • experience: So many of us learn from experience on this subject.
learn Quotes

   You can't learn architecture any more than you can learn a sense of music or of painting.You shouldn't talk about art, you should do it.

—Johnson, Philip Cortelyou

As I grow older, I constantly learn more.

—Solon

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.

—Adams, Henry Brooks

Vitae, non scholae discimus. It is for life, not for school that we learn.

—Seneca full name Lucius AnnaeusSeneca called theYounger

From all I can learn, he'sgot no business, no income, and no connection worth speaking of; but then, I know nothingönobody tells me anything.

—Galsworthy,John

If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well.

—Raban,Jonathan

   A man-cub isa man-cub, and hemust learn all the Lawof the Jungle.

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

Of course we can Learn even from Novels,Nace Novels that is, but it isn't the same thing as serious reading.

—Wells, H(erbert) G(eorge)

Thislittlesteamer, likeall herbraveand battered sisters,is immortal. She'll go sailing proudly down the years in the epic of Dunkirk. And our great-great-grand-children, when they learn how we began this war by snatching glory out of defeat, and then swept on to victory, may also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious.

—Priestley,J(ohn) B(oynton)

Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth fly, We learn so little and forget so much.

—Davies, SirJohn

You learn to love by lovingöby paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.

—Huxley, Aldous Leonard

He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.

—Herbert, George

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

—Gillespie, Dizzy (John Birks)

Homines dum docent discunt. Men learn while they teach.

—Seneca full name Lucius AnnaeusSeneca called theYounger

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me!' and setsustothetaskswhich Hehastofulfil forour time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple,He will reveal Himself inthetoils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who He is.

—Schweitzer, Albert

Aprendamos a ignorar, pensamiento, pues hallamos que cuanto an‹  ado al discurso, tanto le usurpo a los an‹  os. Thought, let's learn not to know, since so plainly it appears that whatever we add to our minds we take away from our years.

—Cruz, SorJuana Ine¤  s de la

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

—Huxley, Aldous Leonard

Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life.

—Spark, Dame Muriel Sarah ne¤  e  Camberg

To learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me.

—Book of Common Prayer

We live and learn, but not the wiser grow.

—Pomfret,John

We live and learn, and big mountains are stern teachers.

—Tilman, Bill (Harold William)

A Harvard education consists of what you learn at Harvard while you are not studying.

—Conant,James Bryant

Where there is much to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, muchwriting, manyopinions; foropinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

—Milton,John

   Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.

—Huxley,T(homas) H(enry)