pedantic

pedantic
    adj 1: marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
           especially its trivial aspects [syn: {academic},
           {donnish}, {pedantic}]
    

Pedantic \Pe*dan"tic\, Pedantical \Pe*dan"tic*al\, a.
   Of or pertaining to a pedant; characteristic of, or
   resembling, a pedant; ostentatious of learning; as, a
   pedantic writer; a pedantic description; a pedantical
   affectation. "Figures pedantical." --Shak.
   [1913 Webster]
    

162 Moby Thesaurus words for "pedantic":
      Gongoresque, Johnsonian, academic, accordant, affected, anal, arid,
      bedizened, bibliophagic, big-sounding, bluestocking, book-fed,
      book-learned, book-loving, book-minded, book-read, book-wise,
      bookish, booky, bourgeois, compulsive, concordant, conformist,
      conventional, conventionalized, convoluted, corresponding,
      declamatory, devoted to studies, didactic, diligent, doctrinaire,
      donnish, dry, dryasdust, dull, elegant, elevated, erudite,
      euphemistic, euphuistic, exact, exquisite, extrinsic, fastidious,
      finical, finicky, flamboyant, flaming, flashy, flaunting, formal,
      formalist, formalistic, formulary, fulsome, fussy, garish, gaudy,
      goody good-good, goody-goody, grandiloquent, grandiose,
      grandisonant, hair-splitting, harmonious, high-flowing, high-flown,
      high-flying, high-sounding, highfalutin, impersonal, in accord,
      in keeping, in line, in step, inkhorn, kosher, labyrinthine,
      learned, legalistic, lexiphanic, literary, lofty, lurid,
      magniloquent, mandarin, meretricious, meticulous, mincing,
      namby-pamby, nit-picking, nominal, orotund, orthodox, ostentatious,
      outward, overdone, overelaborate, overinvolved, overnice,
      overprecise, overrefined, overscrupulous, overwrought, owlish,
      pedagogic, pedantical, perfectionist, plastic, pompous, preachy,
      preceptorial, precieuse, precious, precisian, precisianistic,
      precisionistic, pretentious, professorial, professorlike,
      punctilious, puristic, quibbling, rabbinic, rhetorical, scholarly,
      scholastic, schoolish, schoolmastering, schoolmasterish,
      schoolmasterlike, schoolmasterly, schoolmistressy,
      schoolteacherish, schoolteachery, scrupulous, sensational,
      sensationalistic, sententious, showy, simpering, sonorous, square,
      stiff, stilted, straight, studious, stuffy, stylized, superficial,
      surface, tall, teacherish, teacherlike, teachery, teachy, tortuous,
      traditionalist, tutorial, uptight, vain