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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A schoolteacher; an educator.
  2. n. One who instructs in a pedantic or dogmatic manner.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A teacher of children; one whose occupation is the instruction of children; a schoolmaster: now used, generally with a sense of contempt, for a dogmatic and narrow-minded teacher. Among the Greeks and Romans the pedagogue was originally a slave who attended the younger children of his master, and conducted them to school, to the theater, etc., combining in many cases instruction with guardianship.
  2. n. A schoolroom, or an apartment set apart as a schoolroom.
  3. To teach; especially, to teach with the air of a pedagogue.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A teacher or instructor of children; one whose occupation is to teach the young.
  2. n. A pedant; one who by teaching has become overly formal or pedantic in his or her ways; one who has the manner of a teacher.
  3. n. A slave who led the master's children to school, and had the charge of them generally.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A slave who led his master's children to school, and had the charge of them generally.
  2. n. A teacher of children; one whose occupation is to teach the young; a schoolmaster.
  3. n. One who by teaching has become formal, positive, or pedantic in his ways; one who has the manner of a schoolmaster; a pedant.
  4. v. To play the pedagogue toward.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. someone who educates young people

Etymologies

  1. Middle English pedagoge, from Old French, from Latin paedagōgus, slave who supervised children and took them to and from school, from Greek paidagōgos : paido-, boy; see pedo-1 + agōgos, leader (from agein, to lead; see ag- in Indo-European roots).

Examples

  • “Unless I’m with Sammy, and then I am “nauseated,” because he likes to play at what he calls a pedagogue and I call a smartass.”

    Simon & Schuster: Closing Time

  • “I do not need take philosophical guidance and suggestion, nor instructions on sexual motivation, from someone who thinks that a pedagogue is a kiddy fiddler.”

    Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister?

  • “And this is not because teaching is laborious -- though it _is_ laborious, and thankless, too, beyond all other occupations; but because a number and variety of causes, into which we need not inquire, have combined to throw ridicule upon him, who is derisively called the pedagogue -- for most men would rather be shot at, than laughed at.”

    Western Characters or Types of Border Life in the Western States

  • “The pedagogue was the constant attendant of the boy.”

    History of Education

  • “Villeroy, whom Henry was wont to call the pedagogue of the council, went about sighing dismally, wishing himself dead, and perpetually ejaculating, "Ho! poor France, how much hast thou still to suffer!”

    PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete

  • “Anyway as you don't seem to know the difference between a paedophile and a 'pedagogue', perhaps it is not worth pursuing this debate.”

    Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister?

  • “By appearing to endorse the building of a mosque and Islamic cultural center at the threshold of Ground Zero, Barack Obama has placed himself in the "pedagogue" category.”

    The Huffington Post: Dominique Moisi: Obama the Pedagogue Versus Sarkozy the Demagogue?

  • “He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but then he was something of a military hero; but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment.”

    The Life of Oliver Goldsmith

  • “This flattered the pedagogue which is inherent in all of us.”

    The Clarion

  • “I recently met a "pedagogue" who impressed me as the most "knowing" individual that it had ever been my privilege to become acquainted with.”

    Craftsmanship in Teaching

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Lists

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Comments

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  • gootnbewg He's a windbag and a pedagogue! Jan 7, 2011

  • brtom -- Getououthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition.
    Joyce, Ulysses, 7 Jan 1, 2007

‘pedagogue’ has been looked up 1546 times, loved by 3 people, added to 41 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.