pedant
/ˈpɛdənt/ noun, adjective, verb
Forms pedants pedanting pedanted pædant
- noun A person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar.
- noun A person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning.
- noun (archaic) A teacher or schoolmaster.
- adjective Pedantic.
- verb (rare, humorous) To be or act as a pedant.
Synonyms
nitpicker pettifogger priss smart aleck smartass wiseass wise guy pedanticize pedantize bookworm scholastic
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle French pedant, pedante, from Italian pedante (“a teacher, schoolmaster, pedant”), associated with unrelated Italian pedagogo (“teacher, pedagogue”). Compare French pédant.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A schoolmaster; a pedagogue. [Obs.] Dryden.
- noun One who puts on an air of learning; one who makes a vain display of learning; a pretender to superior knowledge. Addison.
Etymology [F. pédant, It. pedante, fr. Gr. pai^s boy. See Pedagogue.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pedant”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details