learning

Plurallearnings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of learn.

   He is learning the guitar from an online teacher.

   Learning from your own mistakes is part of growing up.

   Note

   The verb form does two jobs. With be it makes the progressive, as in I'm learning to ride or the system is still learning. As a gerund it heads a noun phrase while keeping its verbal grammar, so it takes a direct object: learning the guitar. That object is the easy test against the noun for the process, which needs of instead: the learning of a craft.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   An act or process in which knowledge or a skill is gained.

   Like a muscle that grows stronger with each repetition.

   Learning accelerates when students connect new ideas to what they already know.

   The slow learning of a complex craft can take many years of careful practice.

   Similareducation, study, training

   Note

   The noun was already one word in Old English: leornung, "learning, study," built like the modern form from learn plus -ing, with cognates in Old Saxon lernunga and German Lernung. For the process itself it is usually uncountable, so learning accelerates rather than a learning does. When the thing being learned matters, it takes of: the slow learning of a craft.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Knowledge accumulated over time, especially through study.

   Like a treasury filled coin by coin, each fact adding to the store.

   A scholar of immense learning, she could quote texts in six languages.

   The monastery preserved classical learning through the troubled centuries.

   Similarknowledge, scholarship, erudition, wisdom, education

   Oppositeignorance

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A particular thing that has been learned; a lesson or insight gained from experience.

   Like a souvenir from each experience: something you take away and keep.

   The biggest learning from the failed launch was to test the product earlier.

   She summarized the workshop's main learnings in a short memo.

   Similarlesson, insight, takeaway, finding

   Note

   Here the noun turns countable, and that is what draws objection: learnings in the plural is criticized as a misuse, and careful writers reach for lessons or findings instead. It thrives in business talk. Stuart Elliott's 2007 New York Times piece quotes a plan to "take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business." Unlike accumulated knowledge, which stays uncountable, this sense is counted, and that is where the trouble lies.

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