Definition of pedant

Email this page to a friend

< pedal steel

pedantic >

ped·ant    (pdnt) KEY 

NOUN:

1. One who pays undue attention to book learning and formal rules.
2. One who exhibits one's learning or scholarship ostentatiously.
3. Obsolete A schoolmaster.

---

ETYMOLOGY:
French pédant, or Italian pedante (French, from Italian) possibly from Vulgar Latin *paedns, *paedent- present participle of *paedere, to instruct, probably from Greek paideuein, from pais, paid-, child ; see pedo-²