pedantic
Americanadjective
-
ostentatious in one's learning.
-
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
- Synonyms:
- doctrinaire, didactic
adjective
Other Word Forms
- pedantically adverb
- pedanticalness noun
- semipedantic adjective
- semipedantical adjective
- semipedantically adverb
- unpedantic adjective
- unpedantical adjective
Etymology
Origin of pedantic
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.
By taking on Brontë’s book, Fennell was doomed to stare down millions of overly pedantic literature sticklers, people who prefer their adaptations pure and untainted.
From Salon • Feb. 23, 2026
The critic James Wood decried Mr. Barnes as “a thoroughly English writer,” meaning that he is clever and pedantic and emotionally repressed.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 16, 2026
And the percentage of gold in the portfolio is always fixed at 1/7 — or, if you are pedantic, 14.29%.
From MarketWatch • Oct. 9, 2025
Our balancing act is, “How do we make something not pedantic, make it entertainment, make it so that you can do it, but also maybe shake people a little at the same time?”
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2025
I felt drawn by professionalism to the edge of sterility, capable of no more than pedantic, lifeless, unassailable prose.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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.
