a. Learned in books or the knowledge acquired from them. (Now generally in disparaging sense). Hence Book-learnedness.
c. 1420. Anturs Arth., lv. Boke-lornut byrnus, and bischoppus of the beste.
1601. Dent, Pathw. Heauen, 328. I am somewhat ignorant, I am not book-learned.
1697. Collier, Ess. Mor. Subj., I. (1709), 79. Your old Heroes in Homer (for want of being Book-Learned), were none of the Gentilest-Men.
1693. Dryden, Persius, III. 152 (J.).
| Dammee, what-e’re those Book-learn’d Blackheads say, | |
| Solon’s the veriest Fool in all the Play. |
1837. Emerson, Misc., 77. The book-learned class, who value books as such.
1661. K. W., Conf. Charac. (1860), 37. He hath obtained to so high a measure of book-learnednes.
So Book-learning, learning derived from books (merely), knowledge of books.
1589. Hay any Work, 2. In my book learning, the one was some popish Trull.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), III. 14. The extravagant humour of our Countrey is not to be altogether commended, that all men should aspire to booke learning.
1838. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-bks. (1871), I. 157. Intelligent as respects book-learning, but much deficient in worldly tact.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 308. He had as little book-learning as the most stupid ploughboys of England.
