How to Use pedantic in a Sentence

pedantic

adjective

• 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
• This may seem to be pedantic, but there is a history that colors all of this.
  — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2018
• 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
• 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
• Paul is both strict and pedantic, with a haughty and sarcastic manner.
  — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 31 Oct. 2023
• 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.
  — Vanityfair.com, VanityFair.com, 23 May 2017
• 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
• His style, shaped by a mission to educate, can seem pedantic.
  — The Economist, 31 Oct. 2019
• 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
• The troglodytes and the unhappy housewives and the shallow, pedantic millennials will start to glow and shimmer.
  — Heather Havrilesky, The Cut, 13 Sep. 2017
• 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
• Only a dude could have thrown an internet tantrum so pedantic.
  — Kat Stoeffel, The Cut, 24 Aug. 2017
• But, like most tiresome arguments over pedantic details, the case was not closed in the public forum.
  — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 10 May 2017
• 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
• But, like most tiresome arguments over pedantic details, the case was not closed in the public forum.
  — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 10 May 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
• 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
• That said, the main objection to the Newseum’s decision isn’t pedantic.
  — Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 6 Aug. 2018
• This is a meal that is narrative without being pedantic.
  — Brett Martin, GQ, 23 Apr. 2018
• 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
• With Aru at the helm, this roller coaster through Hindu culture never feels forced or pedantic, but instead like a new kind of myth — where a hero takes a hammer to the world to shine a light through its cracks.
  — Soman Chainani, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2018
• 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
• Don’t get too pedantic about spelling or grammar—just allow the literature to flow.
  — Yasmin Walter, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2023
• And to be pedantic for a moment, plenty of contemporary Spider-Man movies and spin-offs have been released in the years since 2003, when this film is set, and none mentions the good Madame or her coterie of female sidekicks.
  — David Sims, The Atlantic, 14 Feb. 2024
• There could be, by the same token, a version that takes modern Renaissance fairs too seriously, splicing historical explanations with pedantic sound bites from pop-culture pundits.
  — Carrie Battan, The New Yorker, 15 June 2024

Last Updated: 9 Nov 2024