Meaning & use
pedant
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountabledisapproving
Someone who cares too much about small rules, details or exact correctness, often to show off or annoy others.
Grammar: Always refers to a person and is usually critical: don't be such a pedant.
Patterns
- be a pedant about something
- such a pedant
My uncle is a pedant who corrects everyone's grammar at dinner.
Don't be a pedant; everyone understood what I meant.
The editor was a pedant about commas.
nouncountableold-fashioneddisapproving
A scholar or teacher who shows off knowledge and values book learning over real understanding.
Grammar: An older sense found in literature and history, where it sounds insulting.
Patterns
- a mere pedant
The critic dismissed the professor as a mere pedant.
Students rolled their eyes at the pedant who lectured in Latin.
Writers have long mocked the village pedant.
Word forms
| plural | pedants |
|---|
Common combinations
- a pedant about something
- He is a pedant about punctuation.
- such a pedant
- You're such a pedant, aren't you?
- call someone a pedant
- I know you'll call me a pedant, but it's fewer, not less.
- grammar pedant
- A grammar pedant would circle every error.
- to be pedantic
- At the risk of being pedantic, the meeting is at 3:05.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stickler
- Stickler is gentler and can be admiring, since it only means someone strict about a rule, while pedant is usually critical.
- nitpicker
- Nitpicker focuses on finding small faults, whereas pedant emphasizes obsession with rules and exactness.
- purist
- A purist wants something kept in its original form, not necessarily by criticizing details.
- hair-splitter
- Hair-splitter stresses making fine, pointless distinctions, and is more informal than pedant.
Opposites
Word family
- pedantic adjective
- overly concerned with small details
- pedantry noun
- excessive attention to detail and rules
- pedantically adverb
- in a fussy, overly precise way
Commonly confused: pedant or pedestrian?
pedant vs pedestrian
Pedestrian means a person walking, or dull, and is unrelated to pedant despite similar spelling.
Practice
He stopped the meeting to argue that it should be fewer sandwiches, not less; the others sighed and called him a ____.
Choose one answer.
A pedant fusses over small points of correctness. Pedestrian refers to walking or dullness, and the other options have no link to the situation.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pedant”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.