Word.ws English Dictionary

Gradgrindery

Gradgrindery noun: impatient technical pedantry that dismisses human factors, especially regarding education.

Noun

Gradgrindery (uncountable)

  1. Impatient technical pedantry that dismisses human factors, especially regarding education.
    • For others, the process of reducing words to numbers is like sucking the life out of language, a remorseless exercise in Gradgrindery whose limited worldview masquerades as objectivity and universal truth.2001, Justin Lewis, Constructing Public Opinion: How Political Elites Do What They Like and Why We Seem to Go Along with It
    • Tony often contrasted the humanistic ideals of his heroes and teachers with the dry, bureaucratic Gradgrindery which he felt characterised many attempts at educational "reform".2007 April 18, John Bull, “Obituary: Tony Neville”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Origin of Gradgrindery

From Gradgrind + -ery.

Questions about Gradgrindery

What does Gradgrindery mean?
Gradgrindery means impatient technical pedantry that dismisses human factors, especially regarding education.
What part of speech is Gradgrindery?
Gradgrindery is a noun.

Words near Gradgrindery in the dictionary

  1. gradeschoolers
  2. gradewide
  3. gradge
  4. gradges
  5. Gradgrind
  6. Gradgrindery
  7. Gradgrindian
  8. Gradgrindish
  9. Gradgrindism
  10. Gradgrinds
  11. gradian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Gradgrindery (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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