Sentence Examples:
However, it would have been pedantic and unkind to ask Miss Potter, who could probably explain no phrases, to explain this.
He applied himself with laborious zeal to the mastery of a wide range of subjects, and hastened, with pedantic gravity, to retail his newly won learning to his sisters and a group of their friends.
When a person purses up his mouth, as if to prevent the possibility of a smile, though there is nothing to excite one, or nothing to prevent its free indulgence, an affected, solemn, or pedantic expression is given; but of such hybrid expressions nothing more need here be said.
General culture being widely diffused, the pedantic imitations of antiquity applauded by the preceding generation ceased to confer distinction.
I had my doubts beforehand thought that you, dear sister, were a little too much rapt up in yourself and your own worth and importance; and that you, dear brother, were somewhat too pedantic.
This pedantic, pictorial, even scholarly system by our revered writer adopted, is bent, applied to meet extreme passes of imaginative perfection and delicacy.
There is, however, a manifest improvement in the late ones, and in them may be traced the transition from the independent ideas of the revolution to the subsequent submission to one man: and not less striking is the transition from a slip-shod style of art to a pedantic imitation of the antique.
From henceforth she could give herself up to the sentiments which, in pedantic and barbarous jargon, are called altruistic sentiments.
The musical public would rise against him as one man, the pedantic critics and the young men who smoke as they stand on promenade floors.
If Lucretius were the rather pedantic and sharp-nosed Roman of the gem, his wife had little reason for the jealousy which took so deplorable a form.
Morals, as the newspapers would say, are in abeyance, conscience is looked upon as pedantic, especially in women, and unbecoming.
Burke's style is peculiar, and, in another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this criticism.
If they regard the whole universe as one long act of prayer and sacrifice, the idea is grandiose rather than pedantic, though the details may not always be to our taste.
That is the music which is 'the food of love;' and not the formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in which is now-a-days the ruin of half the young couples in the middle rank of life.
I will only say that anything more acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard.
By that I mean the clinging to superstitions of the past, and the pedantic desire to enclose art within narrow limits, which still flourish among critics.
The princess was struck with his beauty and smitten to the depths of her pedantic soul by his obstinate silence, which seemed to her, as indeed it was, an evidence of profound wisdom.
Comte thinks none greater than the pedantic anxiety they show for complete proof, and perfect rationalization of scientific processes.
The pedantic and narrow-minded examiners not only scoffed at the state of his musical knowledge, but told him he was incapable of becoming a musician.
It is a whimsical tale of a no less whimsical revenge taken upon a piece of pedantic lumber, the name of which is given in the title.
To make a classical quotation in a mixed company is considered pedantic and out of place, as is also an ostentatious display of your learning.
He also divested military science of many pedantic terms, which tend only to confuse the young conscript, and dampen the military ardor of the patriot soldier.
Here Dryden held forth with pedantic vanity: and here was laid the first germ of that critical acumen which has since become a distinguishing feature in English literature.
Indeed, when it was a question merely of verbal quotation he said it was pedantic to bother, and when latterly Dorothy Collins looked up his references he barely tolerated it.
Literature had a grave and pedantic character, for where there was any mental activity, instruction was sought almost to the exclusion of gaiety.
There was much classical erudition at that day, and it was exhibited by men of letters in their ordinary conversation in a way which would appear to us pedantic.
The teachers, employed by the machine to expound ideas not their own, soon erect systems of pedantic dogma, under which the living part of literature is buried.
The natural result of the father's pedantic solicitude was that his son came to see in him the schoolmaster rather than the parent.
An unintelligent, a superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source of very many errors in practical judgment.
Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred epithets, apologized for this pedantic lapse, and the tale proceeded.
His English was almost perfect, though now, and again he hesitated in the choice of a word, and there were moments when he was a little stilted in his speech, and more than a little pedantic.
At the risk of appearing pedantic, but with a view to developing an appreciation of the true function of the method of pattern drawing used in this machine, attention is called to the following sectional views of molds and ways of drawing patterns occurring in machine molding.
In short, a mere courtier, a mere soldier, a mere scholar, a mere anything, is an insipid pedantic character, and equally ridiculous.
They are, moreover, liable to the charge of affectation and prettiness, to say nothing of pedantic pretension to accuracy.
At the same time his delicate and natural taste told him that a pedantic and servile imitation of antique models could never produce the desired result.
Our contemporary should cultivate the large tracts of truth which lie between the extreme vagueness of the first estimate and the pedantic accuracy of the second.
A shattered ruin may convey a clear idea of its original state, while a smooth, pedantic restoration will obliterate it entirely.
He was a combination valet and teacher, and the most pedantic and idolatrous person that ever moused through dusty tomes.
On account of the value of dates in placing the facts and compositions in that order which gives so much illustration to the character of the poet, the editor has taken what might appear in other circumstances a pedantic degree of pains on that score.
Those counselors swayed him most who appealed to his family pride, or satisfied his other dominant feelings, attachment to the old order of things and a pedantic clinging to established usages.
My familiar use of language that sounded pedantic because I got it from books, my frequent references to characters I had known in print, were gibberish and vanity of vanities to my new associates.
He admits her merit, her accomplishments, her versatility, and the perfect innocence of her life; but he finds her didactic, pedantic, and tiresome as a writer, and without charm or grace as a woman.
There was a perfect understanding between him and his charges; nothing pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts.
To call this process metamorphic, using that name in the sense given to it by geologists, may at first sight seem pedantic and far-fetched.
The Chinese idea of a civil service in which worth was tested by examinations was carried to a pedantic extreme both in administration and in society.
When a pedantic schoolmaster sees a boy eagerly watching a paper kite, he observes, "What a pity it is that children cannot be made to mind their grammar as well as their kites!"
A recognition of this fact has guided me in fixing the text of this anthology, and every spelling device which seemed to me unnecessary, or clumsy, or pedantic, I have ruthlessly discarded.
She asked about everything, and he told her very exactly and minutely, in a queer pedantic way that made her want to laugh.
For he, first of all men in medicine, freed the world from the influence of pedantic tradition, and paved the way for modern medical science.
A pedantic fellow called for a bottle of hock at a tavern, which the waiter, not hearing distinctly, asked him to repeat.
I am sure the reader will appreciate with sufficient clearness what I mean here by "neighboring" and by "jumps" (if he is not too pedantic).
His style was infected with his pedantic taste; and the hard outline of his satirical humor betrays the scholastic cynic, not the airy and fluent wit.
Her mind had something pedantic in it, and she was rather a good listener than a good talker, but whatever she said was to the point, and she was eloquent with her pen.
It may be seen from many examples how trifling, pedantic, and malicious was the talk of the city for three generations, and how morbidly sensitive, on the other hand, men had become.
It was composed of artisans and governed by the strict, pedantic rules then existing in the arts of musical and literary composition.
He lived in a little whitewashed cottage near the road, gazing out of his front window all day, with a heap of books on a little table beside him, and pedantic spectacles upon his nose.
His wife was wonderfully well suited to him, that is, she was not one whit less plain, or less strict and pedantic, so the poor little girl could not have found the house exactly a bed of roses.
Not on account of this silly, sentimental young woman, or her pedantic husband, but that our young duke and Goethe may not be exposed to scandal, as well as your highness.
The reader is treated to pedantic little footnotes, and given a good deal of information which is either gratuitous or uninteresting.
There is nothing pedantic or high-flown in this attitude which, with a noble solemnity, enabled Johnson to bear up against all odds and to steer right on.
The pedantic bronze manufacturer so dreadfully concerned for his good name and standing in respectable society had changed into a daring fast liver.
Fine, pure voices, Lilly had to admit despite her grief; rendition good and precise, without that pedantic stop-like effect which papa so detested in the singing societies.
Roosevelt, who once called himself the nation's quarterback, never had the patient almost pedantic desire to teach the American people which was so useful to Wilson.
Live with the pedantic, insufferable creature day after day, week after week, and always have her interfering between our Celia and ourselves!
After Goldsmith, the eighteenth-century essay declined into tamer hands, and passed into final feebleness with the pedantic Richard Cumberland and the sentimental Henry Mackenzie.
Law, not lawlessness, is the natural condition of poetic life; but the law must itself be poetic and not pedantic, natural and not conventional.
"Men do not jest about the women whose names are sacred to them," he said with the pedantic chivalry, which always provoked his colleague's opposition.
"The fact is," said the serene, gentle, Professor (who only uses a very few pedantic tints in his style of painting), "feelings of love to our fellow men are useless without reasons."
The problem of the education of such a young idealist is a difficult one; but it seems clear that its principle ought to have been a judicious, not a harsh or pedantic, regularity.
He wrote a splendid hand, but from the pedantic ungainly way in which he took hold of anything, I made sure he was not a good worker.
The peculiarities are felt as an allusion to Homer and Virgil, and give to the verse a kind of learned grace, which may or may not be pedantic, according to the judgment with which it is introduced.
Early amateur efforts often bristle with quotations, foreign words, stilted phrases, pedantic remarks, or references to classical personages.
In any event, Polybius would appear to have been a rather pedantic authority for the military operations of the American backwoods.
His Latin was bad, his views narrow and pedantic, his chief instrument of instruction the birch, of which he made assiduous application.
She had plunged into the frivolities of the town with a zest that was a trifle emphasized through her wish to escape any charge of being pedantic or literary.
In poetical allusions to heavenly phenomena, much attention to detail and a pedantic regard for accuracy would be inappropriate.
It is written in the peculiar style, pedantic and conceited, by which the first king's literary efforts are distinguished, but an extract from it deserves on all accounts to be quoted.
The aversion she had to the pedantic behavior of Cardinal de Richelieu, who in his amours was as ridiculous as he was in other things excellent, made her irreconcilable to his addresses.
His pedantic phraseology reveals his hand in the construction of the reply to the Commissioners' remonstrances and threats.
He marked time, retreated, lost his confidence; and the pedantic and scholastic features of his thought more and more became apparent.
He could indulge in playfulness and could also speak earnestly and profoundly; but he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic.
Colman's comedies made upstart noblemen and pedantic doctors of laws shade their faces, while the pit shook its sides with laughter.
I speak little, I acknowledge, however, for he inspires me with a ceaseless fear: I am afraid of displeasing him, of appearing silly before him, or pretentious, or pedantic.
It greatly tickled his fancy to seduce the "pedantic city still holding to her old reformers, and submitting to the tyrannical laws of Calvin" from the ancient path, and to make war on her orthodoxy.
All these traits give the impression of one who, though by no means pedantic, was only a wit when he had the pen in his hand, and entirely correspond with his apparent aversion to intellectual labor, except under the pressure of want or the stimulus of Court favor.
Yet this autobiography, although signed by himself, is pedantic in form, and deals in words as large and sonorous as though uttered by the great Doctor Samuel Johnson.
His happiness and success have been hindered by pedantic scruples; now he will be built up and delivered from his troubles.
I could cite a thousand examples of well-known geniuses who have grown up in the midst of privations and hunger, but I do not wish to be pedantic.
Now this prejudice lays it down as a rule, that every female author or artist may be known at first sight, by her oddities, her want of modesty, or her pedantic folly.
Though brought up in a studious and pedantic solitude, he was no sooner called to the government of Gaul than he displayed all the energy, the hardihood and the practical sagacity of an old Roman.
Like most of his writings, the Man in the Moon has strong gleams of poetry and fancy amidst much that is both puerile and pedantic.
Heron made a poor attempt to imitate for his friend Wallis the rector's pedantic bass and then, laughing at his failure, asked Stephen to do it.
It is very pedantic in form; but there is a keen insight into human frailty, and there are many shrewd hits and pithy sayings, and it is lightened by anecdotes and illustrations.
Yet, to deny at once all pedantic pretense, it must be made clear that my real concern is with the pleasure, the glow and sense of recognition, to be had from his pages.
She kept young, but it was not the shy simplicity of her daughter, she seemed to have a wide range of knowledge, but she was not pedantic, not obtrusive.
I once heard a learned but somewhat pedantic man begin to answer the question of a child by saying that a lynx is a wild quadruped.
The learned dreamers of a pedantic century heaped up texts and commentaries, and the discovery, by no means difficult in itself, was rendered so, by dint of lectures, reflections, and utopian dreams.
This dialogue is not carried on in a dry and pedantic way; the author has made it singularly attractive in form, expression, and poetical diction.
Whoever is acquainted with the pedantic etiquette of this unstable court will at once recognize how much of fear was expressed by this mark of honor.
His fond father also provided him at an early age with a wife, and tried to subject his son to his guardianship and to the rule of his pedantic nature.