Usage notes

Countable sense “thing learned” often used in plural form (m); see for details.

Usage notes

The term learnings' was not in common use in the 19th and 20th century, though the countable noun sense dates to Middle English (14th century; see (m)), and the plural '''learnings''' to Early Modern English. Note that early use of '''learnings often have the sense or connotation “teachings” (see examples above), as was the case of (m) generally. It has found occasional use for centuries, including by Shakespeare, First use of “learnings”?, ''English Stack Exchange and parallel constructions are commonplace – compare (m) and (m). However, from circa 2000 it became a buzzword in business speak, particularly in constructions such as “key learnings'” or “apply these '''learnings'''”; this was preceded by occasional educational use from 1950s. Some disapprove of this, and it sounds ungrammatical enough to be used as an example of broken English, as in the comedy '' (2006). Suggested alternatives include (m), “things one learned” – or simply (m) – (m), (m), (m), and (m). Most major dictionaries do not label the word as uncountable.