academic

academic

adjective

Definition of ACADEMIC

1

of or relating to schooling or learning especially at an advanced level <“If you spent more time in academic pursuits and less time in social ones, you could easily make good grades,” the dean told Valerie>

Synonyms educational, intellectual, scholarly, scholastic

Related Words bookish, donnish, geeky, nerdish, nerdy, pedagogical (also pedagogic), pedantic, professorial, tweedy; curricular; educative, instructive; collegiate, graduate, postgraduate

Near Antonyms cocurricular, extracurricular; noncollegiate

Antonyms nonacademic, noneducational, unacademic, unscholarly

2

very learned or educated but inexperienced in practical matters <academic thinkers who have no understanding of realpolitik>

Synonyms ivory-tower, ivory-towered, ivory-towerish

Related Words cerebral, eggheaded, highbrow, intellectual

Near Antonyms astute, canny, clear-sighted, hardheaded, hard-nosed, knowing, sharp, sharp-witted, shrewd, tough-minded

3

existing only as an assumption or speculation <your arguments are merely academic—such a worst-case scenario is unlikely to ever occur>

Synonyms academic (also academical), conjectural, hypothetical, speculative, suppositional

Related Words alleged, assumed, presumed, presupposed, proposed, supposed, unproved, unproven, untested; debatable, moot; abstract, conceptual, intellectual, metaphysical; nonclinical, nonpractical; nonempirical

Near Antonyms clinical, practical; concrete, defined, definite, distinct; attested, authenticated, confirmed, demonstrated, established, proven, substantiated, tested, time-tested, validated, verified; empirical (also empiric), nonspeculative, nontheoretical, observational

Antonyms actual, factual, real

Variants of ACADEMIC

academic also academical