verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To discard the knowledge of. transitive

   "It was another lesson from Fort Hare that I had to unlearn in Johannesburg."

2. 2
   discard something previously learnt, like an old habit wordnet
3. 3
   To break a habit. transitive
4. 4
   try to forget; put out of one's memory or knowledge wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

unknow

Example

More examples

"The chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things."

Etymology

From Middle English unlernen. By surface analysis, un- + learn.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.