🧠 To remove learning 🤖 To erase data

to unteach

1 8.4

Make someone stop a learned habit or belief

verb
/ʌnˈtiːtʃ/

: desaprender

To help him improve, the coach needed to unteach some of the techniques that he had learned incorrectly.

Examples

Still unteach you what you thought you knew, or remind you to keep asking.

Blog text (23)
Edicting me to unteach, not teach, never teach again.

Fiction book (1993)
Joseph W. Campbell unteaches me something I had been taught (via).

Blog text (33)
The teacher focused on unteaching bad habits that the students had picked up in previous classes.
It can be challenging to unteach someone a belief they have held for many years.

Synonyms

to deprogram

vsto unteach

1 9.4

To help someone stop believing cult ideas and leave the group

is broader and covers forgetting skills, habits, beliefs, and knowledge

to untrain

vsto unteach

6.5

Make a person or animal stop a learned habit

includes forgetting beliefs and facts as well as losing skills

Antonyms

to teach

∞ 1.0

To help someone learn skills, habits, or knowledge

How Learned

to master

191 4.1

to teach

∞ 1.0

to train

∞ 1.0

to unteach

1 8.4

to unlearn

9 6.4

to forget

∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

unteach infinitive

unteaching present participle

unteaches third person singular

untaught past

untaught past participle

Morphology

unteach = teach (transparent) = un + teach

A productive reversal/negation prefix 'un-' attached to the verb 'teach', yielding the clear meaning 'to cause to forget or stop being taught'.

Etymology

The word unteach comes from the prefix un- meaning 'remove' and the verb teach, and you can think of un- like in undo or untie which reverse an action. So to unteach someone is to help them forget or remove a learned habit or idea.