Gradgrindian
Gradgrindian adjective: having a soulless devotion to facts and figures; inflexibly utilitarian.
Adjective
Gradgrindian (comparative more Gradgrindian, superlative most Gradgrindian)
- Having a soulless devotion to facts and figures; inflexibly utilitarian.
- But today's winning businesses are positively Gradgrindian in their pursuit of the truth.2006 November 13, “Winners must be facts-obsessed in pursuit for truth”, in Financial Times
- Whether one favours a Gradgrindian Thatcherism that removes all worker rights, or a Corbynista fantasy of wholesale nationalisation, we will find these are impossible, given the reach of the Brussels acquis.2016 February 28, John Old, “The EU refendum: Europe’s antidote to alienation and scapegoating is hope”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- Gradgrindish
Synonyms of Gradgrindian
Forms of Gradgrindian
| comparative | more Gradgrindian |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Gradgrindian |
Origin of Gradgrindian
From Gradgrind + -ian, name of a pedantic character in Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times.
Questions about Gradgrindian
- What does Gradgrindian mean?
- Gradgrindian means having a soulless devotion to facts and figures; inflexibly utilitarian.
- What part of speech is Gradgrindian?
- Gradgrindian is an adjective.
Words near Gradgrindian in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Gradgrindian (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “Gradgrindian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gradgrindian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.