Word of the Day: Pedantic
pe-dan-tic / pi-ˈdan-tik
adjective
1. of or relating to a person who makes a show of knowledge
Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.
A.A. Gill, 1954-2016
2. ostentation in one’s learning
Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist – these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent-minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.
Alberto Manguel, 1948-
3. overly concerned with minutiae or formalism
A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and onpedantic exactness.
Niklaus Wirth, 1934-
4. dull; unimaginative
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536
Etymology
This word is an adjective form of the noun pedant. The noun was first recorded in the 1580s and meant ‘schoolmaster’. Spelling and meaning came from the french word pédant and the Italian word pedante. The adjective was formed c. 1600 and the first known recorded use was in John Donne’s ‘Sunne Rising’.
4. dull; unimaginative
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536
Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club. In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year. They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students. Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project. They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study. Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.
