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doctrinaire - 3 dictionary results

doc⋅tri⋅naire

  [dok-truh-nair]
Use doctrinaire in a Sentence
–noun
1. a person who tries to apply some doctrine or theory without sufficient regard for practical considerations; an impractical theorist.
–adjective
2. dogmatic about others' acceptance of one's ideas; fanatical: a doctrinaire preacher.
3. merely theoretical; impractical.
4. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a doctrinaire.
Origin:
1810–20; < F; see doctrine, -aire

Related forms:
doc⋅tri⋅nair⋅ism, noun

Synonyms:
2. authoritarian, uncompromising, inflexible, unyielding.

Antonyms:
2. reasonable, flexible.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To doctrinaire
doc·tri·naire   (dŏk'trə-nâr')   
n.  A person inflexibly attached to a practice or theory without regard to its practicality.
adj.  Of, relating to, or characteristic of a person inflexibly attached to a practice or theory. See Synonyms at dictatorial.

[French, from doctrine, doctrine, from Old French; see doctrine.]
doc'tri·nair'ism n., doc'tri·nar'i·an 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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Doctrinaire

Doc`tri*naire"\, n. [F. See Doctrine.] One who would apply to political or other practical concerns the abstract doctrines or the theories of his own philosophical system; a propounder of a new set of opinions; a dogmatic theorist. Used also adjectively; as, doctrinaire notions.

Note: In french history, the Doctrinaires were a constitutionalist party which originated after the restoration of the Bourbons, and represented the interests of liberalism and progress. After the Revolution of July, 1830, when they came into power, they assumed a conservative position in antagonism with the republicans and radicals. --Am. Cyc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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