1. Characteristic of someone who is excessively concerned with minor and trivial details and rules, especially when displaying academic learning: When anyone asks Frank's professor a question about the sources of words, the student usually gets pedantic responses that include meanings and the origins of the vocabulary expressions.
2. Etymology: from Middle French pedant, pedante, from Italian pedante "a teacher, a schoolmaster", of uncertain origin, traced by some sources to Latin paedagogans, present participle of paedagogare, "to teach", from Greek paedagogein, "to instruct children". © ALL rights are reserved.

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