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didactic - 8 dictionary results

di⋅dac⋅tic

  [dahy-dak-tik]
Use didactic in a Sentence
–adjective
1. intended for instruction; instructive: didactic poetry.
2. inclined to teach or lecture others too much: a boring, didactic speaker.
3. teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson.
4. didactics, (used with a singular verb) the art or science of teaching.
Also, di⋅dac⋅ti⋅cal.

Origin:
1635–45; < Gk didaktikós apt at teaching, instructive, equiv. to didakt(ós) that may be taught + -ikos -ic

Related forms:
di⋅dac⋅ti⋅cal⋅ly, adverb
di⋅dac⋅ti⋅cism, noun

Synonyms:
2. pedantic, preachy, donnish, pedagogic.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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di·dac·tic   (dī-dāk'tĭk)   
adj.  
  1. Intended to instruct.
  2. Morally instructive.
  3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.

[Greek didaktikos, skillful in teaching, from didaktos, taught, from didaskein, didak-, to teach, educate.]
di·dac'ti·cal·ly adv., di·dac'ti·cism (-tĭ-sĭz'əm) n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Didactic

Di*dac"tic\, Didactical \Di*dac"tic*al\, a. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to teach; akin to L. docere to teach: cf. F. didactique. See Docile.] Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; preceptive; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, didactic essays. "Didactical writings." --Jer. Taylor.

The finest didactic poem in any language. --Macaulay.

Didactic

Di*dac"tic\, n. A treatise on teaching or education. [Obs.] --Milton.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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didactic 
1658, from Fr. didactique, from Gk. didaktikos "apt at teaching," from didaktos "taught," from didaskein "teach," from PIE base *dens- "wisdom, to teach, learn."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: di·dac·tic
Pronunciation: dI-'dak-tik, d&-
Function: adjective
: involving lecture and textbook instruction rather thandemonstration and laboratory study
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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didactic di·dac·tic (dī-dāk'tĭk)
adj.
Of or relating to medical teaching by lectures or textbooks as distinguished from clinical demonstration with patients.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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didactic

of literature or other art, intended to convey instruction and information. The word is often used to refer to texts that are overburdened with instructive or factual matter to the exclusion of graceful and pleasing detail so that they are pompously dull and erudite. Some literature, however, is both entertaining and consciously didactic, as, for example, proverbs and gnomic poetry. The word is from the Greek didaktikos, "apt at teaching."

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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