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It’s no hot take to say that the original pundits were highly learned scholars and teachers in India; it’s just a statement of fact. Our English word pundit comes from the Hindi word paṇḍit, a term of respect (and sometimes an honorary title) for a wise person, especially one with knowledge of philosophy, religion, and law; its ultimate source is the Sanskrit word paṇḍita, meaning “learned.” English speakers have used pundit to refer to sages of India since the 1600s, but as is typically done with English, they eventually pushed the word into new semantic territory. By the late 1800s, pundit could also refer to a member of what is sometimes called the commentariat or punditocracy—that is, the collective group of political commentators, financial analysts, and newspaper columnists often paid to share their views on a variety of subjects.
Examples of pundit in a Sentence
Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 21 Mar. 2025
Two years later the Padres still had enough trade chips to assemble arguably baseball’s best bullpen, but what’s left is a collection of minor league talent that ranks near the bottom-five in the game according to industry pundits.
—Jeff Sanders, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2025
Cotton’s office, in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday, denied the pundit’s claim.
—Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, 11 Mar. 2025
Plenty of pundits suggested that the technology could never be commercialized.
—Jayson Stewart, IEEE Spectrum, 5 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pundit
Cite this Entry
“Pundit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pundit. Accessed 28 Mar. 2025.
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