studied

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of study.

   He studied marine biology before switching careers.

   The committee studied the proposal for several weeks.

   Note

   One spelling does the work of both the simple past (she studied) and the participle (had studied, was studied), with the y of study turning to i before -ed. It carries the verb's transitive uses, as in studied the proposal, and its intransitive ones, as in studied for the exam. Placed before a noun, it can slide into the adjective of affected manner: a studied smile is rehearsed, not examined.

2. 2
   adjective

   Deliberate and self-conscious; carefully practiced rather than natural or spontaneous.

   Like a rehearsed speech that sounds polished but never quite spontaneous.

   She greeted the bad news with studied indifference.

   His studied politeness toward his rival made the whole room uneasy.

   Similardeliberate, calculated, affected, contrived, feigned

   Oppositenatural, spontaneous, unaffected, genuine

   Note

   A word for manner rather than knowledge: what is studied in this sense has been rehearsed, and the rehearsal shows. It pairs with nouns of bearing and attitude: a studied reply, studied indifference, and the "studied air" of Ben Travers's A Cuckoo in the Nest (1922). Keep it apart from the dated "learned" meaning. A man studied in a subject knows a great deal, while a studied manner is something put on.

3. 3
   adjectivedated

   Well-versed in a subject through study; learned and deeply knowledgeable.

   Like a walking library, with answers drawn from a lifetime of reading.

   A studied scholar of ancient texts, she corrected the faulty translation at once.

   I asked a man well read, well studied in Nietzsche, what the lifelong task was. He could not say. He had only read and studied and loved Nietzsche’s books.

   c. 1969, O. K. Bouwsma, “An Introduction to Nietzsche’s Letters”

   Similarlearned, erudite, scholarly, knowledgeable, lettered

   Oppositeignorant, unlearned, uneducated

   Note

   An older way of praising someone's learning, now dated. It sits most naturally in the phrase well studied in, followed by the field: well studied in theology, or well studied in Nietzsche, as O. K. Bouwsma put it around 1969. Placed bare before a noun, it can be misread as the "affected" sense, so learned or well-read is the safer choice today.

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