pe·dan·tic

(pə-dăn′tĭk)

adj.

Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for academic knowledge and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.

pe·dan′ti·cal·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pedantic

(pɪˈdæntɪk)

adj

of, relating to, or characterized by pedantry. Also (obsolete): pedantical

peˈdantically adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pe•dan•tic

(pəˈdæn tɪk)

or pe•dan′ti•cal,

adj.

1. ostentatious in one's learning.

2. overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, esp. in teaching.

[1590–1600; pedant + -ic]

pe•dan′ti•cal•ly, adv.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

pedantic - marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects

donnish, academic

scholarly - characteristic of scholars or scholarship; "scholarly pursuits"; "a scholarly treatise"; "a scholarly attitude"

pedantic

adjective

1. hairsplitting, particular, formal, precise, fussy, picky (informal), nit-picking (informal), punctilious, priggish, pedagogic, anal retentive, overnice all his pedantic quibbles about grammar

2. academic, pompous, schoolmasterly, stilted, erudite, scholastic, didactic, bookish, abstruse, donnish, sententious His lecture was pedantic and uninteresting.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

pedantic

adjective

Characterized by a narrow concern for book learning and formal rules, without knowledge or experience of practical matters:

academic, bookish, donnish, formalistic, inkhorn, literary, pedantical, scholastic.

Translations

شَديد التَّحَذْلُق

pedantickýpedantskýslovíčkářský

pedantisch

pedante

kirjaimellinenpedanttinenpikkumainenpikkutarkkarikkiviisas

pédant pointilleux méticuleux

tudálékos

smámunasamur

meticoloso pedante pignolo

pedante

pedantský

kuralcımızmız

学究式的迂腐的

pedantic

[pɪˈdæntɪk] ADJ → pedante

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

pedantic

[pɪˈdæntɪk] adj → tatillon(ne)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

pedantic

adj → pedantisch; to be pedantic about something → in Bezug auf etw (acc) → pedantisch sein

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

pedantic

[pɪˈdæntɪk] adj → pedante, pedantesco/a

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

pedant

(ˈpedənt) noun

1. a person who makes a great show of his knowledge.

2. a person who attaches too much importance to minor details.

peˈdantic (-ˈdӕn-) adjective

peˈdantically adverb

ˈpedantry noun

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Too pedantic. Too courageous with themselves--perhaps.

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"The facts are as follows," replied Tibby, who had at times a pedantic lucidity.

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LIZA [speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and great beauty of tone] How do you do, Mrs.

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"And natural," repeated Lebedeff with pedantic obstinacy.

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"He's a cursed white-blooded pedantic coxcomb," said Will, with gnashing impetuosity.

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Much more voluminous and varied was the work of Miss Burney's successor, Maria Edgeworth, who devoted a great part of her long life (1767-1849) to active benevolence and to attendance on her father, an eccentric and pedantic English gentleman who lived mostly on his estate in Ireland and who exercised the privilege of revising or otherwise meddling with most of her books.

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COMPLEMENTAL VERSES The Pretensions of Poverty Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch, To claim a station in the firmament Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub, Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand, Tearing those humane passions from the mind, Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish, Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense, And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.

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Then the vaunted distinction between Greek and English, between Classic and Romantic schools, seems superficial and pedantic. When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,--when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more.

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He is never pedantic, and, for all his close adherence to broad principles, he is ready to admit that no two ships can be treated exactly alike.

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Roe Lockwood & Son, New York, for my Spanish books, and I dare say that my letters were sufficiently pedantic, and filled with a simulated acquaintance with all Spanish literature.

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"The Magnalia is a strange, pedantic history, in which true events and real personages move before the reader with the dreamy aspect which they wore in Cotton Mather's singular mind.

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He was continually traveling through the three provinces entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe to cruelty with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the minutest details himself.

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