pedantry
2
8.4
- noun
- /ˈpɛdəntri/
:
pedantería
- His pedantry during the presentation distracted the audience from the main points.
Examples
-
Humboldt sought to avoid empty pedantry and materialism by making religion an integral part of the educational system.
Academic text (1990) -
The two letters to her are brief, simple, and free of pedantry, literary adornment, levity, and rhetorical flourish.
Academic text (1994) -
" All the pedantry I couldn't use when I was teaching takes its revenge on me.
Fiction book (1991) -
When the match failed between the student's "desire to know" and the academic investigation, the exercise could degenerate into pedantry.
Academic text (1992) -
Not for pedantry's sake, merely so everyone is having the same conversation.
Blog text (11) -
In fact, the New Criticism arose precisely as a reaction against the pedantry of what I will call the Old Historicism, which dominated literature departments in the 1930s and 1940s.
Academic text (1993) -
Her indifferent appearance was offset by a demeanor that was said to be dignified; those who knew her noted her kindness and decency, though they also remarked on her pedantry regarding written and spoken French.
Academic text (2010) -
The teacher's pedantry was evident in his insistence on strict adherence to grammar rules.
-
Some consider her focus on formal citations as mere pedantry rather than necessary rigor.
Synonyms
1
7.7
Making very small, unimportant differences in an argument or discussion
1
7.5
A quality of being very careful about small details
Being too focused on small rules and details in a way that annoys people
Too much detail or decoration that makes things complicated
Antonyms
How Pedantic
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Pedantry comes from pedant, a word that once meant a kind of teacher, like pedagogue, which means 'teacher' and often suggested someone who liked to 'show off' their learning. So pedantry is the habit of caring too much about small rules and details to seem clever rather than to help.