Pedant

A pedant, or pædant, is a formalist or in teaching or scholarship. The corresponding (obsolete) female noun is pedantess. The term comes from the French pédant (1566 in Darme & Hatzfeldster's Dictionnaire général de la langue français) or its source Italian pedante "teacher," schoolmaster, pedant. (Compare the Spanish pedante.). The origin of the Italian term is uncertain. The first element is apparently the same as in pedagogue (a teacher) etc.; and it has been suggested that pedante was contracted from the medieval Latin pædagogantem, present participle of pædagogare "to act as pedagogue, to teach" (Du Cange); but evidence is wanting. The Latin word is derived from Greek terms for "child" (παιδ-) and "to lead" (αγειν).