- intended for instruction; instructive: didactic poetry.
- inclined to teach or lecture others too much: a boring, didactic speaker.
- teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson.
- didactics, (used with a singular verb) the art or science of teaching.
Origin of didactic
1635–45; < Greek didaktikós apt at teaching, instructive, equivalent to didakt(ós) that may be taught + -ikos -ic
SynonymsSee more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
2. pedantic, preachy, donnish, pedagogic.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for didactics
We sometimes apply to these the words Orthobiotics, Didactics, and Pragmatics.
The words "orthobiotics," "didactics," and "pragmatics" might be used to characterize them.
The greatest part of Mr. Cowper's didactics is in the same strain.Early Reviews of English Poets
John Louis Haney
Hence, we have in Emerson the teaching of a vigorous morality without the formality of dogma and the deadly tedium of didactics.
Few English naturalists are as genial--not even White of Selborne--and few as wide in didactics.
- (functioning as singular) the art or science of teaching
- intended to instruct, esp excessively
- morally instructive; improving
- (of works of art or literature) containing a political or moral message to which aesthetic considerations are subordinated
C17: from Greek didaktikos skilled in teaching, from didaskein to teach
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for didactics
1650s, from French didactique, from Greek didaktikos "apt at teaching," from didaktos "taught," past participle of didaskein "teach," from PIE root *dens- "wisdom, to teach, learn." Related: Didactically; didacticism.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
- Of or relating to medical teaching by lectures or textbooks as distinguished from clinical demonstration with patients.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.