Didact

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who is fond of teaching or who teaches in a pedantic manner, emphasizing form and method over substance
2. Someone who instructs others, especially one who prioritizes moral or educational lessons with a formal or dogmatic approach
3. An instructor or educator who tends toward didactic presentation, stressing instruction and moral guidance in their teaching

Etymology: "Didact" comes from Ancient Greek "didaktos," meaning "taught" or "able to be taught," the past participle form tied to "didaskein," "to teach." The Greek adjective was built on the same root that gave Greek its everyday word for teaching, so the ancient sense was closer to "instructable" than to the stern schoolmaster the English word often suggests. In English, the term has come to describe someone who is pedantic or tediously instructive, a person who lectures rather than conversing. That shift from a neutral description of something teachable to a judgment about a teacher's manner is the notable turn in the word's history, though the exact path of that change in English is not something the source records.

Synonyms: teacher, instructor, pedagogue