didactic

See also: didàctic

English

WOTD – 26 April 2010

Alternative forms

Etymology

From French didactique, from Ancient Greek διδακτικός (didaktikós, skilled in teaching), from διδακτός (didaktós, taught, learnt), from διδάσκω (didáskō, I teach, educate).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: dī-dăkˈtĭk, IPA(key): /daɪˈdæk.tɪk/, /dɪˈdæk.tɪk/
  • (file)
  • Hyphenation: di‧dac‧tic

Adjective

didactic (comparative more didactic, superlative most didactic)

  1. Instructive or intended to teach or demonstrate, especially with regard to morality.
    • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
      Falling Bastilles, Insurrections of Women, thousands of smoking Manorhouses, a country bristling with no crop but that of Sansculottic steel: these were tolerably didactic lessons; but them [the Nobility] they have not taught.
    didactic poetry
    • Macaulay:
      The finest didactic poem in any language.
  2. Excessively moralizing.
  3. (medicine) Teaching from textbooks rather than laboratory demonstration and clinical application.

Synonyms

  1. (Intended to teach or demonstrate): educative, instructive

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

didactic (plural didactics)

  1. (archaic) A treatise on teaching or education.

Translations

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