knowledge

knowledge, science, learning, erudition, scholarship, information, lore are comparable when they mean what is known or can be known, usually by an individual but sometimes by human beings in general.

Knowledge applies not only to a body of facts gathered by study, investigation, observation, or experience but also to a body of ideas acquired by inference from such facts or accepted on good grounds as truths

{

his knowledge is both extensive and accurate

}

{

the advantage of gaining a knowledge of French literature

}

{

strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep it established— Hardy

}

{

the inventor of the radio . . . had the advantage of accumulated knowledge— Krutch

}

Science (see also ART 3) is occasionally employed as a close synonym of knowledge but ordinarily it applies only to a body of systematized knowledge dealing with facts gathered over a long period and by numerous persons as a result of observation and experiment and with the general truths or laws derived by inference from such facts. The term usually connotes more exactness and more rigorous testing of conclusions than knowledge does and therefore is often used to denote knowledge whose certainty cannot be questioned

{

the art of feeding preceded the science of nutrition by many centuries— Hadley

}

{

the defense of nations had become a science and a calling— Macaulay

}

{

perhaps all the science that is not at bottom physical science is only pretentious nescience— Shaw

}

Learning specifically applies to knowledge gained by long and close study not only in the schools or universities but by individual research and investigation; it may be used of those who are engaged in the study of science, but it is more often employed in reference to those who devote themselves to the study of the humanities (as languages, literature, history, and philosophy)

{

he is a man ... of deep learning— Burney

}

{

a man of good education and learning, of an excellent undèrstanding, and an exact taste— Swift

}

{

learning commonly connotes organized lore outside of any scientific area. It is an end in itself, it has been so honored by the world for centuries— H. M. Jones

}

Erudition carries a stronger implication of the possession of profound, recondite, or bookish knowledge than does learning

{

all the encyclopedic erudition of the middle ages— Lowes

}

but often the terms are employed as if they were equivalent in meaning

{

I arrived at Oxford with a stock of erudition, that might have puzzled a doctor— Gibbon

}

{

it does not seem to me fitting . . . that one layman, with no special erudition in that subject, should publicly express his views— T. S. Eliot

}

Scholarship implies the possession of the learning characteristic of the trained scholar; the term usually suggests mastery in detail of a field of study or investigation, the exhibition of such qualities as accuracy and skill in carrying on research intended to extend knowledge in that field, and the display of powers of critical analysis in the interpretation of the material that is gathered

{

never fulfilled the promise of scholarship given by his great and precocious intellectual power and his even greater erudition— Economist

}

{

what scholarship represents is a change in the temper of the human mind, in the focus of its attention and in the quality of the things it cherishes— Frankel

}

Information usually denotes a kind or items of knowledge gathered from various sources (as observation, other persons, or books) and accepted as truth; the term carries no specific implication regarding the extent, character, or soundness of that knowledge; often it suggests no more than a collection of data or facts either discrete or integrated into a body of knowledge

{

seeking information about her ancestor

}

{

his sources of information are not always reliable

}

{

the adult, with trained powers, has an immense advantage over the child in the acquisition of information— Eliot

}

{

a full, rich, human book, packed with information lightly dispensed and fortified with learning easily worn— Tracy

}

Lore is occasionally used in place of learning, but ordinarily it applies to a body of special or out- of-the-way knowledge concerning a particular subject possessed by an individual or by a group and is primarily traditional and anecdotal rather than scientific in character

{

sacred lore

}

{

folk, or popular, etymology does not usually create words, but it provides lore about words which is as pleasant as it is unreliable— Laird

}

{

a lore composed of beliefs, customs, crafts, anecdotes . . . bearing in its content and terminology the unmistakable stamp of the backwoods— Amer. Guide Series: Ind.

}

Antonyms: ignorance