outlearn

English

Etymology

From out- +‎ learn.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: lûn, IPA^(key): /aʊtˈlɜːn/
• (General American) enPR: lûrn, IPA^(key): /aʊtˈlɝn/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n
• Hyphenation: out‧learn

Verb

outlearn (third-person singular simple present outlearns, present participle outlearning, simple past and past participle outlearned or outlearnt)

1. (transitive) To surpass (someone) in learning.

   By eleven years old, the young genius had outlearned most of his teachers.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To learn (something) completely and thoroughly; to exhaust knowledge of.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 24:

     But when as nought according to his mind / He could outlearne

   • 1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Eros”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 150:

     To love and be beloved; / Men and gods have not outlearned it; / And, how oft soe'er they've turned it, / 'Tis not to be improved.

Translations

to surpass (someone) in learning

to learn (something) completely and thoroughly

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “outlearn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)