Gradgrind

Grad·grind

also grad·grind (grăd′grīnd′)

One who values factual knowledge at the expense of imagination and feeling: "'No, Virginia, you've been had,' galumph uncomprehending gradgrinds who dismiss fantasy as lying" (Maureen Mullarkey).

[After Thomas Gradgrind, grimly utilitarian headmaster of a school in the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1854).]

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.

Mentioned in ?

literature

References in classic literature ?

Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general.

Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 'I don't know that girl.

Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers.

'Bitzer,' said Thomas Gradgrind. 'Your definition of a horse.'

Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again.

'You must paper it,' said Thomas Gradgrind, 'whether you like it or not.

What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.' Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated,

Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure.'

View in context

If I get the chance to interrupt this dinner party game of drones when the speaker draws breath, I might counter punch with a rendition of Mr Gradgrind in Dickens' Hard Times, 'Facts!

The facts about fiction and other observations about reading and text selection

It features the strict schoolmaster and father Thomas Gradgrind, who does not permit fanciful thoughts and has omitted the arts from children's education.