donnish
/ˈdɒnɪʃ
/adjective British
Resembling a college don, particularly because of having a pedantic, scholarly manner.He, after a lifetime in office, might be forgiven for expecting to have his advice taken seriously by a donnish, ineffectual Scottish peer who was chiefly known for the shapeliness of his legs and his patronage of botanists....
- Perhaps, though, under the donnish joking they won't notice a great deal of subtlety.
- By a donnish performance, more in the style of a school of philosophy than of an economics department, he proved the case for tax cuts, then forged an intellectual alibi for funking its implementation.
Synonyms
scholarly, studious, academic, scholastic, bookish, book-loving, intellectual, erudite, educated, learned, serious, earnest, thoughtful, cerebral, highbrow;
pedantic;
impractical, ivory-towerish
informal brainy, egghead
British informal swotty
dated lettered
archaic clerkly
Derivatives
donnishly
- Later in this highly allusive lyric, he goes on to explain donnishly.
- When we meet, he is wearing a buttoned up suit and one of the designer's trademark floral shirts, all the while keeping his scarf tied donnishly around his neck.
- They seem an unlikely couple, perhaps: she, a petite, girlish 53, with a curtain of dark, waist-length hair; he, donnishly crumpled with a shock of white hair.
donnishness
- Whatever middle-class donnishness I inherited quickly withered as I became involved in left-wing student and anti-racist politics.
- The donnishness at least is not illusory: he lectures in forensic medicine at the University of Turin.
- His style is a blend of Gaelic eloquence, Harvard donnishness and American stump evangelism.