pedantic
puh-DAN-tikadjMeaning too concerned with small details and rules, often to show off learning
Memory hook pe-DAN-tic: DAN and his rules. Dan stops the soccer game to read out the rule about exactly how round the ball must be. Dan is pedantic.
My pedantic cousin corrected my grammar in the middle of my birthday toast.
In context The tour guide knew a great deal, but she was so pedantic that she spent ten minutes on the difference between two kinds of nails while the visitors fidgeted.
Similar nitpicking, fussy, hair-splitting, overprecise
Opposite easygoing, flexible, casual
From pedant, from Italian pedante, “a schoolteacher.”