pedantocracy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   government or administration dominated by pedants who value rigid rules and narrow learning over practical judgment

   The reformers feared that an expert civil service could harden into a pedantocracy.

Formed from pedant + -ocracy ("rule or government"), the latter ultimately from Greek kratos ("power, rule"). John Stuart Mill used the word in On Liberty for a bureaucracy that degenerates into government by rigid, narrow-minded experts.

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