pedantry

American  

[ped-n-tree] / ˈpɛd n tri /

noun

• pedantries
  plural

1. the character, qualities, practices, etc., of a pedant, especially undue display of learning.

2. slavish attention to rules, details, etc.

3. an instance of being pedantic.

   the pedantries of modern criticism.

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pedantry British  

/ ˈpɛdəntrɪ /

noun

1. the habit or an instance of being a pedant, esp in the display of useless knowledge or minute observance of petty rules or details

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pedantries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pedantry

First recorded in 1575–85, pedantry is from the Italian word pedanteria. See pedant, -ry

Explanation

You know that person who is always interrupting other people, correcting their grammar or their facts? That's pedantry, or inappropriately showing off your knowledge. The noun pedantry refers to the behavior of a pedant, which comes from the French word pédant, meaning “schoolmaster.” While it is a schoolmaster's job to ensure that students learn, someone who is guilty of pedantry just seems to brag, using his or her knowledge to get attention or seem better educated than the people around him or her.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pedantry pedantries

Such pedantry is perhaps why Malaysian durians have earned a special place on the Chinese table.

From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2026

His outlook isn’t rooted purely in rigid pedantry, either: It’s based on his taste, but it’s also tied to what he’s accomplished through a very specific approach.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022

A windowless chamber is for dwelling on the consequences of your pedantry.

From New York Times ● Oct. 7, 2021

The Big Day is technically Chance the Rapper’s debut album, although this designation is a farcical bit of marketing pedantry even by current standards.

From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2019

This logician would be unbearably pedantic, but there is a grain of good taste in the pedantry.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

He was an observational genius whose main talent was for exposure — exposure of the predictable opponent and exposure of pedantries, and he treated both as pretty much the same thing.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2022

There is a withering crossfire of pedantries in nearly all academic discussions of slavery and American blacks.

From Time Magazine Archive

These are not the most besetting dangers of more modern steersmen: what we have to guard against now is neither a repetition of the pedantries of Steevens nor a recrudescence of the moralities of Ulrici. 

From A Study of Shakespeare by Edmund Gosse

In those days," says Warton, "ecclesiastics and schoolmen presumed to dictate to kings and to give rules for administering states, drawn from the narrow circle of speculation, and conceived amid the pedantries of a cloister.

From Game and Playe of the Chesse A Verbatim Reprint of the First Edition, 1474 by William Caxton

Impartially, and with lively interest, did he enter into the policy of Tiberius, and the enthusiasm of Loyola, the gradual development of slavery in North America, and the pedantries and dreams of Robespierre.

From Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, Vol. II. by Gustav Freytag