pedantic
Americanadjective
-
ostentatious in one's learning.
-
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
- Synonyms:
- doctrinaire, didactic
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pedantic
Explanation
There's nothing wrong with focusing on the details, but someone who is pedantic makes a big display of knowing obscure facts and details. Pedantic means "like a pedant," someone who's too concerned with literal accuracy or formality. It's a negative term that implies someone is showing off book learning or trivia, especially in a tiresome way. You don't want to go antique-shopping with a pedantic friend, who will use the opportunity to bore you with his in-depth knowledge of 18th-century porcelain kitty-litter boxes.
Vocabulary lists containing pedantic
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
His book, learned without being pedantic, reminds us how insistently earlier generations returned to the Revolution as a living argument—something to be invoked, revised and, at times, fought over.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
By taking on Brontë’s book, Fennell was doomed to stare down millions of overly pedantic literature sticklers, people who prefer their adaptations pure and untainted.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
Our balancing act is, “How do we make something not pedantic, make it entertainment, make it so that you can do it, but also maybe shake people a little at the same time?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2025
Environmental films that are pedantic, prescriptive, or hold audiences by the collar to make them feel bad do more disservice than good, he says.
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2024
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
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
