How to Use pedantic in a Sentence

pedantic

adjective
  • This may seem to be pedantic, but there is a history that colors all of this.
    — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2018
  • Thomas was both more romantic and more pedantic than his son had imagined.
    — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Only a dude could have thrown an internet tantrum so pedantic.
    — Kat Stoeffel, The Cut, 24 Aug. 2017
  • Paul is both strict and pedantic, with a haughty and sarcastic manner.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 31 Oct. 2023
  • His style, shaped by a mission to educate, can seem pedantic.
    — The Economist, 31 Oct. 2019
  • Rice cleaners are pedantic and nitpicky.
    — Aksha Mittapalli, Better Homes & Gardens, 1 June 2026
  • The voice — at once pedantic and forceful, and strangely aged and pampered — was the most fun of all.
    — Jamie Fisher, New York Times, 22 June 2018
  • In the face of such daunting totals, the details of whether one tree is seen as a refugee or not may seem pedantic.
    — Olivia Gieger, Forbes, 24 Sep. 2021
  • So much of the rhetoric of vaccine advocates has been pedantic and angry.
    — Isaac Schorr, National Review, 28 Apr. 2021
  • Well, without seeming like a pedantic killjoy, there are those legal niceties of the system.
    — The Hive, 22 May 2017
  • Well, without seeming like a pedantic killjoy, there are those legal niceties of the system.
    — vanityfair.com, 23 May 2017
  • Or should it be based on a nimbler, less pedantic standard designed by people who can’t agree on what’s best?
    — Nate Hopper, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2022
  • This used to be a pedantic detail for academics, but that changed in the past decade as interest rates plunged to all-time lows.
    — Jon Sindreu, WSJ, 26 Feb. 2021
  • That’s for the best, and not just because the past three years of public life have inspired enough pedantic art for three lifetimes.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 30 Aug. 2019
  • In the context of a smartphone, this distinction can feel a little pedantic.
    — Literary Hub, 17 June 2026
  • There is a lesson here — about friendship, and sharing — but the book never feels plodding or pedantic.
    — Julia Turner, New York Times, 12 May 2017
  • At the risk of sounding pedantic, the classic consumer journey feels shallow.
    — Prince Ghuman, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2021
  • Wearing a red zip-up sweat shirt, jeans and black loafers, Petro is often accused of being aloof and pedantic.
    — Jim Wyss, miamiherald, 1 May 2018
  • But, like most tiresome arguments over pedantic details, the case was not closed in the public forum.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 10 May 2017
  • There is a reason books about architecture are not more popular; most of them are dull, pedantic, just plain bad.
    — Hugo Lindgren, Curbed, 22 Mar. 2021
  • And Mitchell is perfectly cast in a role seemingly built to suit his usual fussy, pedantic schtick.
    — Anne Victoria Clark, Vulture, 21 Mar. 2025
  • And yes, pedantic grading rubrics and exams don’t provide the kind of warmth that traumatized young people need.
    — C. Brandon Ogbunu, Wired, 2 Sep. 2020
  • Don’t get too pedantic about spelling or grammar—just allow the literature to flow.
    — Yasmin Walter, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2023
  • Rita has a somewhat more codified and pedantic view of the divine — a view that blinds her to the simple beauties of the world.
    — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 26 June 2024
  • But the pedantic tone Trebek took toward wrong responses made the right answers feel even more special.
    — Mansee Khurana, The Atlantic, 10 Nov. 2020
  • Sure, these long-winded accounts can sometimes come off as pedantic, but more often than not, the devil is truly in the details.
    — Vulture Editors, Vulture, 12 Feb. 2021
  • Chatty, digressive, and pedantic, the narrator seems to work through a checklist of issues.
    — Kaya Genç, The New Republic, 4 Apr. 2023
  • His use of the word also undercuts the often pedantic debate over just how unfree labor has to be in order to be called slavery.
    — Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 20 May 2017
  • The troglodytes and the unhappy housewives and the shallow, pedantic millennials will start to glow and shimmer.
    — Heather Havrilesky, The Cut, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Playwright James Still packs all this and too much more into his metaphor-heavy, pedantic script without doing any of it justice.
    — Chicago Reader, 14 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pedantic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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