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Definition of pedant - 4 dictionary results

ped⋅ant

  [ped-nt]
Use pedant in a Sentence
–noun
1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.
4. Obsolete. a schoolmaster.
Origin:
1580–90; < It pedante teacher, pedant; appar. akin to pedagogue; see -ant

Related forms:
ped⋅ant⋅esque, adjective
ped⋅ant⋅hood, noun

Synonyms:
2. hairsplitter.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To pedant
ped·ant   (pěd'nt)   
n.  
  1. One who pays undue attention to book learning and formal rules.
  2. One who exhibits one's learning or scholarship ostentatiously.
  3. Obsolete A schoolmaster.

[French pédant or Italian pedante (French, from Italian), possibly from Vulgar Latin *paedēns, *paedent-, present participle of *paedere, to instruct, probably from Greek paideuein, from pais, paid-, child; see pedo-2.]
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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Pedant

Ped"ant\, n. [F. p['e]dant, It. pedante, fr. Gr. ? to instruct, from pai^s boy. See Pedagogue.]

1. A schoolmaster; a pedagogue. [Obs.] --Dryden.

A pedant that keeps a school i'th' church. --Shak.

2. One who puts on an air of learning; one who makes a vain display of learning; a pretender to superior knowledge. --Addison.

A scholar, yet surely no pedant, was he. --Goldsmith.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : pedant
Spanish: pedante,
German: der, *die Pedant(in),
Japanese: 学者ぶる人
More Translations »

pedant 
1588, "schoolmaster," from M.Fr. pédant (1566), from It. pedante "teacher, schoolmaster," apparently an alteration of L.L. paedagogantem (nom. paedagogans), prp. of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1596. Pedantic formed in Eng. c.1600, in Donne's "Sunne Rising," where he bids the morning sun let his love and him linger in bed, telling it, "Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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