ped⋅ant  /ˈpɛdnt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ped-nt] Show IPA
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–noun 1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.
4. Obsolete. a schoolmaster.


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Origin:
1580–90; < It pedante teacher, pedant; appar. akin to pedagogue; see -ant


Related forms:


ped⋅ant⋅esque, adjective
ped⋅ant⋅hood, noun


Synonyms:

2. hairsplitter.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.


ped·ant (pěd'nt)
n.
1. One who pays undue attention to book learning and formal rules.
2. One who exhibits one's learning or scholarship ostentatiously.
3. Obsolete A schoolmaster.

[French pédant or Italian pedante (French, from Italian), possibly from Vulgar Latin *paedēns, *paedent-, present participle of *paedere, to instruct, probably from Greek paideuein, from pais, paid-, child; see pedo-2.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


Word Origin & History

pedant

1588, "schoolmaster," from M.Fr. pédant (1566), from It. pedante "teacher, schoolmaster," apparently an alteration of L.L. paedagogantem (nom. paedagogans), prp. of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1596. Pedantic formed in Eng. c.1600, in 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."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper