didactic, a. and n.
(dɪˈdæktɪk)
[mod. ad. Gr. διδακτικ-ός apt at teaching, f. διδάσκειν to teach. Cf. F. didactique (1554 in Hatz.-Darm.)]
A. adj. Having the character or manner of a teacher or instructor; characterized by giving instruction; having the giving of instruction as its aim or object; instructive, preceptive.
| 1658 R. Franck North. Mem. (1821) 54 Must I be didactick to initiate this art? 1661 Worthington To Hartlib xvi. (T.), Finding in himself a great promptness in such didactic work. 1756 J. Warton Ess. Pope (1782) I. iii. 101 A poem of that species, for which our author's genius was particularly turned, the didactic and the moral. 1824 Dibdin Libr. Comp. 682 The dullest of all possible didactic and moral poetry. 1830 Mackintosh Eth. Philos. Wks. 1846 I. 59 A permanent foundation of his [Hobbes'] fame remains in his admirable style, which seems to be the very perfection of didactic language. 1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 130 Polybius..is too didactic—seldom adorning a tale but always ready to point a moral. 1878 R. W. Dale Lect. Preach. viii. (ed. 2) 226, I do not mean that sermons addressed to Christian people should be simply didactic. |
| absol. 1754 A. Murphy Gray's-Inn Jrnl. No. 90 ¶6 Both [Eloquence and Poetry]..have occasionally strengthened themselves with Insertions of the Didactic. |
B. n.
† 1. A didactic author or treatise. Obs.
| 1644 Milton Educ. Wks. (1847) 98/2 To search what many modern Januas and Didactics..have projected, my inclination leads me not. 1835 Southey Doctor III. 162 Acknowledged in the oldest didactics upon this subject. |
2. pl. didactics [see -ics]: The science or art of teaching.
| 1846 Worcester cites Biblical Repos. 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. Poems 1890 VI. 38 Didactics, driven Against the heels of what the master said. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Consid. Wks. (Bohn) II. 412 Life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. 1881 J. G. Fitch Lect. Teach. ii. 36 The art of teaching, or Didactics as we may for convenience call it, falls under two heads. |