Definition of "pedantry"

An excessive attention to detail or rules.

1. An instance of such behaviour.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • [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.

     1855, Charles Kingsley, “The True and Tragical History of Mr. John Oxenham of Plymouth”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., page 209

An overly ambitious display of learning.  examples