pedant
/ˈpɛdənt/
pedant noun: a person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar.
Noun
pedant (plural pedants)
- A person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar.
- A person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning.
- A teacher or schoolmaster.
- I have in my youth oftentimes beene vexed to see a Pedant [tr. pedante] brought in, in most of Italian comedies, for a vice or sport-maker, and the nicke-name of Magister to be of no better signification amongst us.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 24, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
Adjective
pedant (not comparable)
Verb
pedant (third-person singular simple present pedants, present participle pedanting, simple past and past participle pedanted)
- To be or act as a pedant.
- […] as any occasion of going behond^([sic – meaning beyond]) the sea with sombody, or pedanting in some Gentlemans house, &c., for clergy-employment I will accept of none.1648 October 10, Abraham Woodhead, Bodl., MS Clarendon 31, folio 276, verso
- Tediously he pedanted, hedging around concerning the Perfect State, eventually coming out into the open with his own private Perfect State plan.1942 spring, George R. Hahn, “Gangway for Homer”, in Science Fiction Quarterly, number 6, Holyoke, Mass.: Columbia Publications, →OCLC, page 125, column 2
- Synonyms:
- pedanticize, pedantize
pedant meaning in Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic
pedant in Malayalam
- അധ്യാപകൻ, പ്രബോധകൻ, വിദ്യാഗർവ്വിതൻ
pedant in Kannada
- ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಪಂಡಿತ, ಒಣಪಂಡಿತ, ಶುಷ್ಕ ಪಂಡಿತ, ಪಾಂಡಿತ್ಯ ಪ್ರದರ್ಶಕ, ಒಣತಿಳಿವಿಗ
pedant in Arabic
- person who emphasizes their knowledge through strict adherence to rules of vocabulary and grammar
- مُتَشَدِّق mutašaddiq
- person overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning
- مُتَحَذْلِق mutaḥaḏliq
Examples of pedant in a sentence
- ‘Most people in this country aren’t Christian, the standard package should not be Christian,’ Gerrard pedanted.2000, Mark Barrowcliffe, “How the lady gets sawn in half”, in Girlfriend 44, London: Headline Book Publishing, →ISBN, page 223:
- At first he rejected the offer, knowing what to expect, dear old dad would dance around the room pedanting about some shit that didn’t make sense anyway.2005 February 25, Mark Dahl, chapter 18, in Covenant Betrayed: Revelations of the Sixties, the Best of Time; the Worst of Time, book 2...
- “Maybe in…your closet?” / “As I under stand human Anna to my,”^([sic]) Blarcch Beletchian pedanted at them, “there is not enough room for bodies to lie in a small space like a closet.2017, Ira Nayman, “Carrie-Anne’s Crew”, in The Multiverse is a Nice Place to Visit, But I Wouldn’t Want to Live There (Transdimensional...
Synonyms of pedant
Antonyms
Forms of pedant
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pedants |
| alternative form (obsolete) | pædant |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pedants |
| present participle | pedanting |
| past participle | pedanted |
| past | pedanted |
Origin of pedant
From Middle French pedant, pedante, from Italian pedante (“a teacher, schoolmaster, pedant”), associated with unrelated Italian pedagogo (“teacher, pedagogue”). Compare French pédant.
Words formed from pedant
Questions about pedant
- What does pedant mean?
- Pedant means a person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar.
- What is pedant in Malayalam?
- Pedant in Malayalam is അധ്യാപകൻ, പ്രബോധകൻ, വിദ്യാഗർവ്വിതൻ. See Pedant meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use pedant in a sentence?
- ‘Most people in this country aren’t Christian, the standard package should not be Christian,’ Gerrard pedanted.
- What part of speech is pedant?
- Pedant can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce pedant?
- Pedant is pronounced /ˈpɛdənt/.
- What is the plural of pedant?
- The plural of pedant is pedants.
Words near pedant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pedant (page history and authors); pedant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pedant (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pedant.wav.
Cite this entry: “pedant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pedant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.