Meaning & use
lessons
Last updated
“lessons” is a form of “lesson”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
nounplural
Periods of time in which a teacher teaches a subject or skill to a student or a class.
Grammar: Plural of lesson; use take or have with it: take lessons, have lessons.
Patterns
- take lessons in something
- give someone lessons
She takes piano lessons every Tuesday after school.
The school offers swimming lessons for beginners.
He gives private lessons in math to younger students.
nounpluralfigurative
Useful things you learn from an experience, especially a mistake or a bad event, so you can act better in future.
Grammar: Used with learn or draw: learn lessons from the past.
Patterns
- learn lessons from something
- draw lessons from something
The company learned valuable lessons from its failed launch.
Hard lessons from the flood changed how the town builds.
She drew important lessons from her first year of running a business.
Word forms
| singular | lesson |
|---|
Common combinations
- take lessons
- He decided to take lessons in French.
- give lessons
- She gives guitar lessons at home.
- learn lessons
- We must learn lessons from this mistake.
- drawing lessons
- Her drawing lessons start next week.
- hard lessons
- Losing the match taught the team hard lessons.
- lessons learned
- The report listed the lessons learned from the project.
Synonyms and how they differ
- classes
- Classes is often used for a group meeting with a teacher, while lessons can also be one-to-one.
- tutoring
- Tutoring suggests individual or small-group help, usually to catch up, and is uncountable unlike lessons.
- morals
- Morals applies to the second sense only and suggests a message about right and wrong, whereas lessons covers any useful knowledge gained.
- insights
- Insights suggests sudden understanding, whereas lessons stresses what was taught by experience.
Word family
Commonly confused: lessons or lessens?
lessons vs lessens
Lessens is the verb form of lessen, meaning reduces. Lessons are periods of teaching or things learned.
Practice
After the accident, the town ___ some hard lessons about flood safety.
Choose one answer.
Learn lessons is the natural collocation for gaining useful knowledge from experience. Taught would need a person receiving the lesson, as in taught us lessons.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lessons”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.