Dictionary

donnish en · ADJ

Etymology

From don (professor) + -ish.

Meanings

1. (UK) Characteristic of a university don.
   • The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it’s hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you’ll give him as a cue. 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II (Meeting Streams), page 321:
   • The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit. A recent issue of Viz ran a cartoon of the critic, poet and translator urinating all over a phone booth, while two donnish FR Leavis types nodded appreciatively from a safe distance. 2016 April 9, Philip Oltermann, “Michael Hofmann: ‘English is basically a trap. It’s almost a language for spies’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • The proctor was a gentlemanly, straight-forward looking man of about thirty, not at all donnish, and his address answered to his appearance. 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], chapter XII, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC:
2. (of a person) Bookish, theoretical and pedantic, as opposed to practical.
   • The new engineer had a donnish air, and found it difficult to communicate with the workers in the factory.

Forms

Deriveds

undonnish · donnishly · donnishness

Translations (2)

bg педантичен (bookish) · bg сух (bookish)