donnish
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mr. Boorman comes across as donnish, astute and likable, but also arrogant and dismissive of legitimate concerns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
During a long, donnish life he also found time to co-write the only dictionary for Krio, the lingua franca of Sierra Leone.
From Economist ● Feb. 1, 2018
I think when I meet those arguments I tend to become a bit donnish, perhaps slightly finger-wagging.
From BBC ● May 31, 2017
Although some readers found these asides a little donnish, the dispensation of particulars achieved a sensuous flow: you could go swimming in Porter’s omniscience.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 4, 2015
But all three are obscure and deeply moving topics, topics for which the donnish mind has a kind of special ineptitude, and which it evades with the utmost skill and delicacy.
From Marriage by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
