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View synonyms for pedant

pedant

[ ped-nt ]

noun

  1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
  2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.

    Synonyms: hairsplitter

  3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.
  4. Obsolete. a schoolmaster.


pedant

/ ˈpɛdənt /

noun

  1. a person who relies too much on academic learning or who is concerned chiefly with insignificant detail
  2. archaic.
    a schoolmaster or teacher


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Other Words From

  • pedant·esque adjective
  • pedant·hood noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of pedant1

First recorded in 1580–90; from Italian pedante “teacher, pedant”; apparently akin to pedagogue; -ant

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Word History and Origins

Origin of pedant1

C16: via Old French from Italian pedante teacher; perhaps related to Latin paedagōgus pedagogue

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Example Sentences

Call me a Limbaugh pedant, but Rush is on in the afternoon; has been for 22 years.

In a few years the girl he had married would be a plain and prickly little pedant—ill-bred besides—and he knew it.

I have not wanted friends, even among strangers, who have defended me more strongly, than my contemptible pedant could attack me.

Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant would get entangled in his round of history—in his historical resemblances.

Aldus the younger, was a precocious scholar, of the pedant type, and under him the traditions of the family rapidly fell.

The man of routine, the mere pedant, the mere deprecator of mistakes, asks always for a precedent.

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pedal steel guitarpedantic