didactic
adjective
Richard C. LeineckerRobert B. HeilmanKirkus ReviewsPaul Lewis
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We Will Teach You the Origin of Didactic
Didaktikós is a Greek word that means "apt at teaching." It comes from didáskein, meaning "to teach." Something didactic does just that: it teaches or instructs. Didactic conveyed that neutral meaning when it was first borrowed in the 17th century, and still does; a didactic piece of writing is one that is meant to be instructive as well as artistic. Parables are generally didactic because they aim to teach a moral lesson. Didactic now sometimes has negative connotations, too, however. Something described as "didactic" is often overburdened with instruction to the point of being dull. Or it might be pompously instructive or moralistic.
Synonyms
Examples of didactic in a Sentence
Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 1993
For two decades, many Americans, including some early advocates of the Vietnam intervention, have been relentlessly didactic, extracting cautionary lessons from Vietnam.
—George F. Will, Newsweek, 22 May 1989
—the trappings, one might say—of a didactic and resolutely pious Victorian sensibility in the service of an anarchic imagination.
—Joyce Carol Oates, The Profane Art, 1983
the poet's works became increasingly didactic after his religious conversion
Jerry Saltz, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2024
In Things to Come, shots of airplane squadrons over the white cliffs of Dover and superimpositions of soldiers marching through the English countryside were eccentric visions of pre-War British fears, perfecting what Wells had made overly didactic.
—Armond White, National Review, 9 Oct. 2024
Overly didactic films or TV shows—those that hammer home the ‘right’ way to think or behave - will alienate audiences.
—Solitaire Townsend, Forbes, 17 Sep. 2024
But a lot of those gaps were actually intentional elisions, the result of Leone's broader stylistic conviction against didactic storytelling.
—Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 23 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for didactic 
Dictionary Entries Near didactic
Cite this Entry
“Didactic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/didactic. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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didactic
adjective
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didactic
adjective
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