What is the difference between taught and learned?

taught | learned |

As verbs the difference between taught and learned

is that taught is past tense of teach while learned is past tense of learn: taught.

As an adjective learned is

having much learning, knowledgeable, erudite; highly educated.

taught

English

Verb

(head)

(teach)

English irregular past participles English irregular simple past forms

learned

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) lerned, from (etyl)

Verb

(head)

(US) (learn): taught

Adjective

(en adjective)

Having much learning, knowledgeable, erudite; highly educated.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.iii:

the learned Merlin, well could tell, / Vnder what coast of heauen the man did dwell [...].

* 1854 , Charles Edward Pollock, Lake v. Plaxton , 156 Eng. Rep. 412 (Exch.) 414; 10 Ex. 199, 200 (Eng.)

My learned Brother Cresswell directed the jury to make the calculation [...].

* {{quote-magazine

, year=2011 , month=Feb , author=Jess Lourey , coauthors= , title=A Pyramid Approach to Novel Writing , volume=124 , issue=2 , page=30-32 , magazine=Writer , passage=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. }}

* {{quote-magazine

, year=2011 , month=Spring , author=Jill Lepore , coauthors= , title=How Longfellow Woke the Dead , volume=80 , issue=2 , page=33-46 , magazine=American Scholar , passage=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 ... }}

My learned friend (a formal, courteous description of a lawyer)

Alternative forms

Usage notes

* This adjectival sense of this word is sometimes spelled with a grave accent. This is meant to indicate that the second ‘e’ is pronounced as , rather than being silent, as in the verb form. This usage is largely restricted to poetry and other works in which it is important that the adjective’s disyllabicity be made explicit.

Synonyms

* (having much knowledge) brainy, erudite, knowledgeable, scholarly, educated * See also

Antonyms

* (having little knowledge) ignorant, stupid, thick, uneducated

Derived terms

* learnedly * learnedness

Etymology 2

From (etyl)

Alternative forms

* learnt

Verb

(head)

(learn)

Adjective

(en adjective)

Derived from experience; acquired by learning.

Everyday behavior is an overlay of learned behavior over instinct.

Statistics

External links

* *

Anagrams

* * English heteronyms