pedant
Americannoun
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a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
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a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
- Synonyms:
- hairsplitter
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a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.
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Obsolete. a schoolmaster.
noun
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a person who relies too much on academic learning or who is concerned chiefly with insignificant detail
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archaic a schoolmaster or teacher
Other Word Forms
- pedantesque adjective
- pedanthood noun
Etymology
Origin of pedant
First recorded in 1580–90; from Italian pedante “teacher, pedant”; apparently akin to pedagogue; -ant
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.
In order to put the pedant on permanent display, the museum had to pay a reward to the metal detectorist who made the discovery and the owner of the land it was found on.
From BBC • Feb. 9, 2026
Poor Sheila, stuck next to this humorless pedant.
From New York Times • Mar. 5, 2023
As any pedant will tell you, May is not technically summer.
From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2022
“If you think of yourself as something very special, you’ll end up a pedant and a bore.”
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 30, 2020
A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair.
From "1984" by George Orwell
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Definitions 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.