learn

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: lûn, IPA^(key): /lɜːn/
• (General American) enPR: lûrn, IPA^(key): /lɝn/

• Audio - 'to learn' (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n

From Middle English lernen, from Old English leornian (“to acquire knowledge”), from Proto-Germanic *liznaną. Cognate with German lernen (“to learn”).

learn (third-person singular simple present learns, present participle learning, simple past and past participle learned or (chiefly UK) learnt)

1. To acquire, or attempt to acquire knowledge or an ability to do something.
   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     Every day I learn more about this great city. 

     Audio (US)

     (file)

2. To attend a course or other educational activity.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     For, as he took delight to introduce me, I took delight to learn.

3. To gain knowledge from a bad experience so as to improve.

   learn from one's mistakes

4. To be studying.
5. To come to know; to become informed of; to find out.

   He just learned that he will be sacked.

• See other, dated and regional, sense of learn below.

• study

• forget
• teach

Possibly related to Middle English leren, from Old English lǣran (“to teach, instruct, indoctrinate”), from Proto-Germanic *laizijaną (“to teach”), from *laizō (“lore, teaching", literally, "track, trace”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyəs- (“to track, furrow”). Cognate with Scots lere, leir, Saterland Frisian leere, West Frisian leare, Dutch leren, German lehren, Swedish lära. See also lear, lore. But normally the Middle English word would give lere, not learn.

learn (third-person singular simple present learns, present participle learning, simple past and past participle learned or learnt)

1. (now only in non-standard speech and dialectal) To teach.

   Give him a clip round the ear. That'll learn him!

   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter ix, in Le Morte Darthur, book VIII:

     And whan she had serched hym / she fond in the bottome of his wound that therin was poyson / And soo she heled hym […] / and therfore Tramtrist cast grete loue to la beale Isoud / for she was at that tyme the fairest mayde and lady of the worlde / And there Tramtryst lerned her to harpe / and she beganne to haue grete fantasye vnto hym

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4 Scene 1

     Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

   • circa 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act I Scene 5:

     Have I not been / Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how / To make perfumes?

   • 1993, The Simpsons, (18 Feb. 1993) Lisa's thoughts:

     That'll learn him to bust my tomater.

Now often considered non-standard.

• learned

• larn
• lore

• learn in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• learn in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913..
• Family Word Finder, Readers Digest Association Inc. NY 1975

• Laren, neral, renal

• learnan (Timau)

From Old High German lernēn, lirnēn, from Proto-Germanic *liznaną. Compare German lernen, English learn, Dutch leren.

learn

1. (Sappada, Sauris) to learn

• “learn” in Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

• IPA^(key): /lɛrn/

learn (third-person singular present learns, present participle learnin, past learnt, past participle learnt)

1. To learn.
2. To teach.