What does donnish mean?
Donnish means (UK) Characteristic of a university don..
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Pronunciation varies by accent · adjective
(UK) Characteristic of a university don..
The proctor was a gentlemanly, straight-forward looking man of about thirty, not at all donnish, and his address answered to his appearance.
The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it’s hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you’ll give him as a cue.
The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit. A recent issue of Viz ran a cartoon of the critic, poet and translator urinating all over a phone booth, while two donnish FR Leavis types nodded appreciatively from a safe distance.
The new engineer had a donnish air, and found it difficult to communicate with the workers in the factory.
Use donnish when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Donnish means (UK) Characteristic of a university don..
Common synonyms include pedantic, academic, scholarly.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
The proctor was a gentlemanly, straight-forward looking man of about thirty, not at all donnish, and his address answered to his appearance.
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