# pedant
## English
### Alternative forms

* pædant (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Middle French pedant, pedante, from Italian pedante (“a teacher, schoolmaster, pedant”), associated with unrelated Italian pedagogo (“teacher, pedagogue”). Compare French pédant.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: pĕdʹənt, IPA: /ˈpɛdənt/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Noun

pedant (plural pedants)
* A person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar.
* A person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning.
* (archaic) A teacher or schoolmaster.
** 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 24, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:I have in my youth oftentimes beene vexed to see a Pedant [tr. pedante] brought in, in most of Italian comedies, for a vice or sport-maker, and the nicke-name of Magister to be of no better signification amongst us.

#### Derived terms

* pedantic
* pedantly
* pedantry

#### Translations
### Adjective

pedant (not comparable)
* Pedantic.

### Verb

pedant (third-person singular simple present pedants, present participle pedanting, simple past and past participle pedanted)
* (rare, humorous) To be or act as a pedant.
** 1648 October 10, Abraham Woodhead, Bodl., MS Clarendon 31, folio 276, verso:[…] as any occasion of going behond the sea with sombody, or pedanting in some Gentlemans house, &c., for clergy-employment I will accept of none.
** 1942 spring, George R. Hahn, “Gangway for Homer”, in Science Fiction Quarterly, number 6, Holyoke, Mass.: Columbia Publications, →OCLC, page 125, column 2:Tediously he pedanted, hedging around concerning the Perfect State, eventually coming out into the open with his own private Perfect State plan.
** 2000, Mark Barrowcliffe, “How the lady gets sawn in half”, in Girlfriend 44, London: Headline Book Publishing, →ISBN, page 223:‘Most people in this country aren’t Christian, the standard package should not be Christian,’ Gerrard pedanted.
** 2005 February 25, Mark Dahl, chapter 18, in Covenant Betrayed: Revelations of the Sixties, the Best of Time; the Worst of Time, book 2 (Despair and Dessent), Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 149:Jim’s mother pestered him daily for a month to come home for a talk. At first he rejected the offer, knowing what to expect, dear old dad would dance around the room pedanting about some shit that didn’t make sense anyway.
** 2017, Ira Nayman, “Carrie-Anne’s Crew”, in The Multiverse is a Nice Place to Visit, But I Wouldn’t Want to Live There (Transdimensional Authority; 5), Dartford, Kent: Elsewhen Press, →ISBN:“Okay,” she said to the investigators, “how can I help you?” / “You, uhh, wouldn’t happen to have seven bodies lying around, would you?” Bao Bai-Leung, feeling a little ridiculous, asked. “Maybe in…your closet?” / “As I under stand human Anna to my,” Blarcch Beletchian pedanted at them, “there is not enough room for bodies to lie in a small space like a closet. Unless they were midgets like this person, or their limbs were detachable, or the closet was a gateway to eleven-dimensional space, or –” / “Oh, great!” TOM put in. “We got a literalist, here!”
** 2017 May 30, David Steele, “Why do pedants pedant?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-05-30:So, why do pedants pedant? We don’t really know, but some tangential studies infer it’s to do with a mixture of personality, status-signalling and group identification.
** 2022, Alex Beeton, “‘A shame to bee out of a prison, or in a Felloship’: Cooperation and Education”, in ‘Not Infected with the Venime of the Times’: The Rump Parliament and Places of Learning, 1649-53‎, thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxfordshire: University of Oxford, page 212:When one Oxford fellow was ejected in 1648 he immediately wrote to his royalist patron seeking employment ‘going behond [sic] the sea with sombody, or pedanting in some Gentlemans house’.$^{128}$ Whether he succeeded or not is not known, but others certainly ended up ‘pedanting’.

### See also

* Pedant in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
* stickler

### Further reading

* “pedant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* “pedant”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
* “pedant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

### Anagrams

* panted, pentad

## Czech
### Etymology

Borrowed from German Pedant, from French pédant, from Italian pedante.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈpɛdant]

### Noun

pedant m anim
* pedant (person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning)

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “pedant”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
* “pedant”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
* “pedant”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)
* “pedant” in Akademický slovník současné češtiny, 2012–2025, slovnikcestiny.cz

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

pedant (comparative pedanter, superlative pedantst)
* pedantic

#### Declension
## Latin
### Verb

pedant
* third-person plural present active indicative of pedō

## Middle French
### Alternative forms

* pedante

### Etymology

Borrowed from Italian pedante.

### Noun

pedant m (plural pedants)
* teacher; tutor; educator
* pedant

## Polish
### Etymology

Borrowed from French pédant.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈpɛ.dant/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛdant
* Syllabification: pe‧dant

### Noun

pedant m pers (female equivalent pedantka, related adjective pedancki)
* clean freak, neat freak, out-and-outer, pedant, prig, stickler (person obsessed with tidiness or cleanliness)
    Synonyms: porządniś, skrupulant, skrupulat
    Antonym: bałaganiarz

#### Related terms

* pedanteryjny
* pedantyczny
* pedancko
* pedanteryjnie
* pedantycznie
* pedanteria
* pedanteryjność
* pedantyczność
* pedantyzm

### Further reading

* pedant in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
* pedant in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French Pedant.

### Adjective

pedant m or n (feminine singular pedantă, masculine plural pedanți, feminine and neuter plural pedante)
* pedantic

#### Declension
## Serbo-Croatian
### Etymology

Borrowed from German Pedant, from French pédant, from Italian pedante, from Ancient Greek παιδεία (paideía).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /pědant/; /pedânt/
* Hyphenation: pe‧dant

### Noun

pèdant, pedȁnt m (Cyrillic spelling пѐдант, педа̏нт)
* pedant (person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning)

#### Declension
### References

* “pedant”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

## Swedish
### Noun

pedant c
* a pedant (someone pedantic)
    Synonym: petimeter

#### Declension

| | | nominative | genitive |
| singular | indefinite | pedant | pedants |
| singular | definite | pedanten | pedantens |
| plural | indefinite | pedanter | pedanters |
| plural | definite | pedanterna | pedanternas |

### References

* pedant in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* pedant in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
* pedant in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)