pedantry

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)An excessive attention to detail or rules.

   “Another point on which Smart insists is the distinction between serf and surf […] A distinction can of course be made, and without much difficulty, by those who think of it, and is made by those who have formed a habit of doing so; but the distinction is so rarely made as to amount almost to pedantry […]”

2. (countable, uncountable)An excessive attention to detail or rules.

   “I don’t want to listen to your pedantries anymore.”

   “[T]he southern court of the ballium had become a flower-garden, with quaint terraces, statues, knots of flowers, clipped yews and hollies, and all the pedantries of the topiarian art.”

3. (countable, uncountable)An overly ambitious display of learning.