pedant
[ped-nt]
noun
a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.
Obsolete. a schoolmaster.
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RELATED WORDS
Origin of pedant
Synonyms for pedant
2. hairsplitter.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for pedant
Contemporary Examples of pedant
Call me a Limbaugh pedant, but Rush is on in the afternoon; has been for 22 years.
Historical Examples of pedant
You think yourself happy because you are wise, said a philosopher to a pedant.
Tales And Novels, Volume 8 (of 10)Maria Edgeworth
But the license is actually got: the parson is provided: the pedant Brand is the man.
Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9)Samuel Richardson
Any one who questions our triumphant progress is tabooed for a pedant.
Another SheafJohn Galsworthy
He talks pleasantly, and nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.
The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)Charles James Lever
It has been well said of him that he never became either a pedant or a doctrinaire.
Erasmus and the Age of ReformationJohan Huizinga
pedant
noun
Word Origin for pedant
C16: via Old French from Italian pedante teacher; perhaps related to Latin paedagōgus pedagogue
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper