pedant

[ ped-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

/ 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 Words From

• pedant·esque adjective
• pedant·hood noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pedant¹

First recorded in 1580–90; from Italian pedante “teacher, pedant”; apparently akin to pedagogue; -ant

Word History and Origins

Origin of pedant¹

C16: via Old French from Italian pedante teacher; perhaps related to Latin paedagōgus pedagogue

Example Sentences

However relevant the stereotypical, silence-enforcing librarian remains in the popular imagination, Mychal Threets wants to dispel any lingering notion of the library as a dry, humorless place, lorded over by rigid pedants.

From New York Times

To please the pedants among you the original phrase "winter of our discontent" comes from the opening line of Shakespeare's Richard III.

From BBC

Once, having demanded that a headline combine several complex elements in a short word count, he found the result wanting: “As if written by pedants from Mars,” he declared.

From New York Times

Her Timlin is a squeaky-voiced pedant whose awkwardness masks personal and professional ambitions, as well as a lust for Saul that briefly threatens to transform “Crimes of the Future” into a triangle.

From Los Angeles Times

As any pedant will tell you, May is not technically summer.

From Washington Post