pedant

American  

[ped-nt] / ˈpɛd nt /

noun

1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.

2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.

   Synonyms:

   hairsplitter

3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.

4. Obsolete. a schoolmaster.

---

pedant British  

/ ˈpɛdənt /

noun

1. a person who relies too much on academic learning or who is concerned chiefly with insignificant detail

2. 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

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

The Jeffersonian journalist James Callender, after calling Adams a "repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite and an unprincipled oppressor," was fined and sentenced to nine months in jail.

From Salon • Feb. 17, 2020

The Younger, as even Dunn admits, was a plodder and a bit of a pedant.

From New York Times • Dec. 10, 2019

Good luck—in the face of words so forceful—to the pedant who squawked: “Hey! Swizz! No we aren’t! That’s not the proposition to which the nation’s dedicated—and that’s not what we’re testing!”

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith