pedantic
Obsessed with minutiae
The adjective pedantic negatively characterizes someone who is overly concerned with unimportant or small details.
Thinking, writing, or speech can also be characterized as pedantic: Readers get lost in his pedantic criticisms and soon lose sight of the larger points he wishes to make.
The noun underlying pedantic is pedant, which is a person who nitpicks.
Excessive focus on trivialities
- quibblingPetty objection-raising
- cavilingPetty fault-finding
- carpingTrivial persistent criticism
- faultfindingSeeking out imperfections
overcritical · captious · hypercritical · niggling · pettifogging · nit-picky · persnickety · finicky
Accuracy of measurement
- accuracyDegree of correctness
- meticulousShowing extreme attention to detail
- thoroughComplete in every detail
- rigorousExtremely thorough and careful
scrupulous · punctilious · exacting · methodical · systematic · detail-oriented · careful · strict
Marked by serious learning
- professorialBefitting an academic lecturer
- bookishDevoted to reading
- didacticIntended to instruct
- lecturingGiving an instructive talk
erudite · learned · donnish · scholastic · ivory-tower · intellectual · pontificating · preachy
Demands strict adherence
- perfectionistOne demanding flawlessness
- precisionistOne insisting on exactness
- dogmaticAsserting opinions as facts
- uncompromisingRefusing to yield ground
orthodox · rigid · inflexible · by-the-book · rule-bound · formalist · traditionalist · prescriptivist
hair-splitting
Excessive focus on trivialities
faultfinding · overcritical · captious · hypercritical · niggling · pettifogging · nit-picky · persnickety · finicky · overparticular
precision
Accuracy of measurement
- accuracyDegree of correctness
- meticulousShowing extreme attention to detail
- thoroughComplete in every detail
rigorous · scrupulous · punctilious · exacting · methodical · systematic · detail-oriented · careful · strict · literal
scholarly
Marked by serious learning
- professorialBefitting an academic lecturer
- bookishDevoted to reading
- didacticIntended to instruct
lecturing · erudite · learned · donnish · scholastic · ivory-tower · intellectual · pontificating · preachy · condescending
stickler
Demands strict adherence
- perfectionistOne demanding flawlessness
- precisionistOne insisting on exactness
- dogmaticAsserting opinions as facts
uncompromising · orthodox · rigid · inflexible · by-the-book · rule-bound · formalist · traditionalist · prescriptivist · literalist
- fancy wordsgrandiloquent, magniloquent, sesquipedalian, pulchritudinous, tintinnabulation
- academicscholarly, academic, intellectual, erudite, learned
- fussinessfussiness, pickiness, picky, nitpicky, persnickety
- debate tacticsexaggeration, appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, logical fallacy, straw man
- arrogancearrogant, conceited, pompous, vain, haughty
- conformityconformity, conforming, conform, conformist, conformism
pedanticpractical
Suited for real use
pragmatic · unscholarly · careless · imprecise · broad-minded
pedanticinformal
Relaxed, not official
casual · plain-spoken · conversational · straightforward · plain