donnish
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
During a long, donnish life he also found time to co-write the only dictionary for Krio, the lingua franca of Sierra Leone.
From Economist ● Feb. 1, 2018
I think when I meet those arguments I tend to become a bit donnish, perhaps slightly finger-wagging.
From BBC ● May 31, 2017
He still fires up the forge now and then, either to do donnish demonstrations for new hires or to make things: door hinges, fireplace sets, a shovel for his son’s pizza oven.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 12, 2016
In fact, this biography reads like two books: one an intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life, the other a sensationalistic anthology of gossip and subdued malice.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2015
But all three are obscure and deeply moving topics, topics for which the donnish mind has a kind of special ineptitude, and which it evades with the utmost skill and delicacy.
From Marriage by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
