pedantic
Americanadjective
-
ostentatious in one's learning.
-
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
- Synonyms:
- doctrinaire, didactic
adjective
Other Word Forms
- pedantically adverb
- pedanticalness noun
- semipedantic adjective
- semipedantical adjective
- semipedantically adverb
- unpedantic adjective
- unpedantical adjective
Etymology
Origin of pedantic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
By taking on Brontë’s book, Fennell was doomed to stare down millions of overly pedantic literature sticklers, people who prefer their adaptations pure and untainted.
From Salon
The critic James Wood decried Mr. Barnes as “a thoroughly English writer,” meaning that he is clever and pedantic and emotionally repressed.
“At best they are being incredibly pedantic. At worst, intentionally daft.”
From Los Angeles Times
And the percentage of gold in the portfolio is always fixed at 1/7 — or, if you are pedantic, 14.29%.
From MarketWatch
None of this is pedantic, nor is it puffed up with moral outrage.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
