pedant

[ped-nt]

See more synonyms for pedant on Thesaurus.com

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.

Origin of pedant

1580–90; < Italian pedante teacher, pedant; apparently akin to pedagogue; see -ant

Related formsped·ant·esque, adjectiveped·ant·hood, noun

Synonyms for pedant

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2. hairsplitter.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for pedant

egghead, bookworm, pedagogue, doctrinaire, bluestocking, dogmatist, methodologist

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.
Rush Limbaugh! The Musical
Rick Perlstein
February 3, 2010

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 Sheaf
John 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 Reformation
Johan Huizinga

British Dictionary definitions for pedant

pedant

noun

a person who relies too much on academic learning or who is concerned chiefly with insignificant detail
archaic a schoolmaster or teacher

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 Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for pedant

1580s, "schoolmaster," from Middle French pédant (1560s) or directly from Italian pedante, literally "teacher, schoolmaster," of uncertain origin, apparently an alteration of Late Latin paedagogantem (nominative paedagogans), present participle of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1590s.