Word.ws English Dictionary

grammar police

grammar police noun: one or more people who make negative comments, which are usually unsolicited and unwanted, concerning the correctness of someone's English usage.

Noun

grammar police pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) One or more people who make negative comments, which are usually unsolicited and unwanted, concerning the correctness of someone's English usage.
    • The grammar police are cruising the info highway, and they're writing tickets. In newsgroups . . . bad English does not go unnoticed.1997 September 7, Patricia T. O'Conner, “Grammar Cops”, in New York Times, retrieved 13 Mar 2018
    • Some wordsmiths wield their lexicological powers like an angry red pen, rooting out errors and marking them for all the world to see. (We're talking to you, Grammar Police.)2012 May 30, Heidi Stevens, “Language: More fun with fewer rules?”, in Chicago Tribune, retrieved 13 Mar 2018

Examples of grammar police in a sentence

  • A leading Oxford University academic has implored “the grammar police” and spelling pedants to be a bit more relaxed about changing standards of written English.2013 May 29, Harry Wallop, “Hay Festival 2013: Oxford professor asks for grammar pedants to relax”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 13 Mar 2018:
  • [S]ince my mother-in-law was a former public school teacher, she is the Grammar Police.2015 September 24, Madeline Case, “Have you sworn an oath to the Grammar Police?”, in Business Management Daily, retrieved 13 Mar 2018:

Synonyms of grammar police

Questions about grammar police

What does grammar police mean?
Grammar police means one or more people who make negative comments, which are usually unsolicited and unwanted, concerning the correctness of someone's English usage.
How do you use grammar police in a sentence?
A leading Oxford University academic has implored “the grammar police” and spelling pedants to be a bit more relaxed about changing standards of written English.
What part of speech is grammar police?
Grammar police is a noun.

Words near grammar police in the dictionary

  1. grammar cops
  2. grammar induction
  3. grammar nazi
  4. grammar nazis
  5. grammar Nazism
  6. grammar police
  7. grammar school
  8. grammar schools
  9. grammar-nazi
  10. grammar-nazis
  11. grammar-oriented programming

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grammar police (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-grammar police.ogg.

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