pedant

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.

In Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” buffoonish actors play “the pedant, the braggart, the hedge priest, the fool, and the boy.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 21, 2026

It is completely understandable to raise concerns about a tattoo associated with the Nazi secret police; nobody should be regarded as a pedant for doing so.

From Slate • Apr. 13, 2026

In order to put the pedant on permanent display, the museum had to pay a reward to the metal detectorist who made the discovery and the owner of the land it was found on.

From BBC • Feb. 9, 2026

Enemy Number One: The pedant or self-styled grammar snob, who has been with us for at least 400 years judging by the examples presented here, wringing his hands and lamenting the decline in linguistic standards.

From New York Times • Jan. 1, 2020

Hundreds of years after the first Ophelia cried “Woe is me,” only a pedant would argue that Shakespeare should have written “Woe is I” or “Woe is unto me.”

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner