didactic

See also: didàctic

English

WOTD – 26 April 2010

Alternative forms

• didactick (obsolete)

Etymology

From French didactique, from Ancient Greek διδακτικός (didaktikós, “skilled in teaching”), from διδακτός (didaktós, “taught, learnt”), from διδάσκω (didáskō, “I teach, educate”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: dī-dăkˈtĭk, IPA^(key): /daɪˈdæk.tɪk/, /dɪˈdæk.tɪk/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æktɪk
• Hyphenation: di‧dac‧tic

Adjective

didactic (comparative more didactic, superlative most didactic)

1. Instructive or intended to teach or demonstrate, especially with regard to morality.

   Synonyms: educative, instructive

   didactic poetry

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

     Falling Bastilles, Insurrections of Women, thousands of smoking Manorhouses, a country bristling with no crop but that of Sansculottic steel: these were tolerably didactic lessons; but them [the Nobility] they have not taught.

   • 1856 February​, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith [from the Encyclopædia Britannica]”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:

     The finest didactic poem in any language.

2. Excessively moralizing.
3. (medicine) Teaching from textbooks rather than laboratory demonstration and clinical application.

Derived terms

• autodidactic
• autodidacticism
• didact
• didactical
• didactically
• didacticism
• didacticist
• didacticistic
• nondidactic
• undidactic

 

Translations

instructive or intended to teach or demonstrate

• Azerbaijani: ibrətli
• Catalan: didàctic
• Danish: didaktisk, belærende
• Finnish: didaktinen (fi), opettavainen (fi), kasvattava (fi)
• French: didactique (fr)
• German: didaktisch (de)
• Italian: didattico (it), didascalico (it) m
• Norwegian: didaktisk
• Persian: تعلیمی‎ (fa) (ta'limi), آموزشی‎ (fa)
• Portuguese: didático (pt)
• Russian: наста́внический (ru) (nastávničeskij), нравоучи́тельный (ru) (nravoučítelʹnyj), дидакти́ческий (ru) (didaktíčeskij),, назида́тельный (ru) (nazidátelʹnyj)
• Serbo-Croatian: didàktičkī (sh)
• Spanish: didáctico (es)
• Swedish: didaktisk (sv)
• Turkish: eğitici (tr), eğitsel (tr), didaktik (tr), öğretici (tr), öğretsel

excessively moralizing

• Danish: didaktisk, docerende
• Finnish: opettavainen (fi)
• Russian: нравоучи́тельный (ru) (nravoučítelʹnyj), настави́тельный (ru) (nastavítelʹnyj), ме́нторский (ru) (méntorskij)

teaching from textbooks rather than laboratory demonstration and application

• Catalan: didàctic
• Finnish: teoreettinen (fi)
• French: livresque (fr)
• Turkish: öğretici (tr)

Noun

didactic (plural didactics)

1. (archaic) A treatise on teaching or education.

Translations

treatise on teaching

Romanian

Etymology

From French didactique.

Adjective

didactic m or n (feminine singular didactică, masculine plural didactici, feminine and neuter plural didactice)

1. didactic

Declension

Declension of didactic

		singular			plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine	masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative/ accusative	indefinite	didactic		didactică	didactici	didactice
	definite	didacticul		didactica	didacticii	didacticele
genitive/ dative	indefinite	didactic		didactice	didactici	didactice
	definite	didacticului		didacticei	didacticilor	didacticelor