Donnish (Adjective)
Meaning
Marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects.
Classification
All adjective clusters.
Examples
- The professor's donnish obsession with obscure literary references often left his students bewildered.
- His donnish tendencies made him more of a pedant than a true scholar, always nitpicking minor details.
- The academic's donnish love of citing obscure sources made his lectures feel like a never-ending trivia contest.
- Despite his impressive credentials, the historian's donnish focus on trivial dates and events detracted from the bigger picture.
- The scholar's donnish approach to research, focusing on minute details, sometimes blinded him to the broader implications of his findings.