pedantic
[puh-dan-tik]
- ostentatious in one's learning.
- overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
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Also Archaic, pe·dan·ti·cal.
Origin of pedantic
Synonyms
See more synonyms for pedantic on Thesaurus.com2. didactic, doctrinaire.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pedantical
Historical Examples
It took at least five minutes before the wearisome, pedantical fellow had finished his arrangements and preparations.
I do not think that success will come by a pedantical insistence upon correctness in form without regard to the sense.
College TeachingPaul Klapper
There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge, the one critical, the other pedantical.
The Advancement of LearningFrancis Bacon
pedantic
- of, relating to, or characterized by pedantry
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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 pedantical
pedantic
adj.
formed in English c.1600, from pedant + -ic. The French equivalent is pédantesque. Perhaps first attested in John Donne's "Sunne Rising," where he bids the morning sun let his love and him linger in bed, telling it, "Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes." Related: Pedantical (1580s); pedantically.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper