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pedant, n. (a.)|ˈpɛdənt|
Also 7 pædant.
[a. F. pédant (1566 in Hatz.-Darm.) or its source It. pedante teacher, schoolmaster, pedant.
The origin of the It. is uncertain. The first element is app. the same as in peda-gogue, etc.; and it has been suggested that pedante was contracted from a med.L. pædagōgānt-em, pr. pple. of pædagōgāre to act as pedagogue, to teach (Du Cange); but evidence is wanting.]
†1. A schoolmaster, teacher, or tutor (= pedagogue 2, but often without implication of contempt; in quot. 1662 = pedagogue 1). Obs.
1588Shakes. L.L.L. iii. i. 179, I that haue beene..A domineering pedant ore the Boy. 1599B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. ii. i, Hee loues to haue a fencer, a pedant, and a musician, seene in his lodgings a mornings. 1601Shakes. Twel. N. iii. ii. 80 Like a Pedant that keepes a Schoole i'th Church. 1654H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 145 From a Countrey Pedant, he became..a Peer of the Realm. 1662J. Bargrave Pope Alex. VII (1867) 48 He kept a small school in Rome, which he left to serve Cardinal Maffeo Barberino, to wait upon his nephews as a pedant.., conducting them every day to school to the Roman College and bringing them back again. a1704T. Brown Eng. Sat. Wks. 1730 I. 27 Oldham ow'd..nothing to his birth, but little to the precepts of pedants.
2. A person who overrates book-learning or technical knowledge, or displays it unduly or unseasonably; one who has mere learning untempered by practical judgement and knowledge of affairs; one who lays excessive stress upon trifling details of knowledge or upon strict adherence to formal rules; sometimes, one who is possessed by a theory and insists on applying it in all cases without discrimination, a doctrinaire.
1596Nashe Saffron Walden 43 O, tis a precious apothegmaticall Pedant, who will finde matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first inuention of Fy, fa, fum. 1663Butler Hud. i. i. 94 A Babylonish dialect, Which learned Pedants much affect. 1711Addison Spect. No. 105 ⁋4 A Man who has been brought up among Books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is..what we call a Pedant. But, methinks, we should enlarge the Title, and give it to every one that does not know how to think out of his Profession and particular way of Life. 1812Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) I. vi. 172, I mean your learned young ladies—pedants in petticoats. 1874Green Short Hist. viii. §2. 465 He [Jas. I] had the temper of a pedant;..a pedant's love of theories, and a pedant's inability to bring his theories into any relation with actual facts.
3. attrib. or as adj. That is, or has the character of, a pedant; of or pertaining to a pedant; pedantic.
1616R. C. Times Whistle vi. 2505 Each pedant Tutour. 1670Dryden 2nd Pt. Conq. Granada iii. ii, It points to pedant colleges, and cells. 1703Rowe Fair Penit. v. i, The pomp of words, and pedant dissertations. 1845Carlyle Cromwell (1871) IV. 71 Respectable Pedant persons. 1875L. Morris Evensong cliii, The pure thought smirched and fouled, or buried in pedant lore.
4. Comb.
1611Cotgr., Pedantesque, pedanticall, inkhornizing, pedant-like. 1884Symonds Shaks. Predec. vii. 263 The honours of that pedant-rid Parnassus.
Hence ˈpedantess, a female pedant; ˈpedanthood, the condition or character of a pedant.
1784R. Bage Barham Downs I. 75 Unfeeling pedantess, says I..thou art no wife for me. 1843Carlyle in Last Words of T. C. (1892) 217 Hard isolated Pedanthood. |