donnish

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of donnish Much of it is donnish intellectual history, full of interesting but digressive discussions. Jeffrey Collins, WSJ, 5 Oct. 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for donnish
Adjective
  • Advertisement To be clear, academic freedom is too often seen as a narrow prerogative of the professorial class.
    Nicholas Dirks, Time, 16 Oct. 2025
  • The voice turned more professorial, clinical.
    Jon Michael Varese, The Atlantic, 28 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • One-by-one the students came up to the mic to say silly phrases that Sheeran looped together to form a rhythm, earning praise from the teachers for his pedagogical skills.
    Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 22 Oct. 2025
  • This collaboration spurred me to reflect on college newspapers and my own pedagogical approach as a librarian to media literacy.
    Joshua Finnell, JSTOR Daily, 1 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Jennifer’s Body follows two polar opposite best friends, the outgoing Jennifer and bookish Needy (Amanda Seyfried), whose friendship takes a turn when the former embarks on a murderous rampage of her male classmates.
    Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 26 Oct. 2025
  • On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X and Goodreads, bookish users often tout images of impressive titles and aesthetically pleasing reading setups or monthly reading lists with dozens of books already checked off.
    Angela Yang, NBC news, 14 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • As men's wear grew less formal, Woody Allen would stake a claim on baggy khaki and corduroy as the uniform of a tweedy, tightly wound New Yorker.
    Joshua Hunt, New York Times, 12 June 2024
  • Her clothes, increasingly, have a pragmatic femininity, like a number of tweedy bellbottom suits that opened the show, some with vests of blue and coral beads covering the front, or diamond patterns of turquoise and plum sequins on the sleeves.
    Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 8 Dec. 2022
Adjective
  • Morris played both baseball and football in high school, and was a scholastic All-State quarterback who reportedly turned down 20 collegiate offers to sign with the Phillies for $25,000 in 1960.
    Jon Paul Hoornstra, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Oct. 2025
  • For true scholastic style, pair it with penny loafers or Mary Janes.
    Francesca Krempa, Travel + Leisure, 19 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Later that year, Crunchyroll’s parent company Sony took things even more seriously by acquiring Alamo Drafthouse in what looked to some like a good way of bolstering its anime business by acquiring a company known for its nerdy and passionate clientele.
    Brian Welk, IndieWire, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Originally, Joe Keery’s popular kid with a crush on the nerdy girl, Nancy, was supposed to be a bad guy.
    Eliana Dockterman, Time, 16 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Donnish.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/donnish. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.

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