didactic

also di·dac·ti·cal (-tĭ-kəl)
adj.

1. Intended to instruct.
2. Morally instructive.
3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.

[Greek didaktikos, skillful in teaching, from didaktos, taught, from didaskein, didak-, to teach, educate.]

didactically di·dac'ti·cal·ly adv.
didacticism di·dac'ti·cism (-tĭ-sĭz'əm) n.

(dy-DAK-tik)
also didactical (-ti-kal) adjective
1. Intended to instruct.
2. Morally instructive.
3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.
4. didactics, (used with a singular verb) the art or science of teaching.

Etymology
Greek didaktikos, skillful in teaching, from didaktos, taught, from didaskein, didak-, to teach, educate.

Usage
"Tt might be argued that literature has only very rarely represented character. Even the greatest novelists, such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, resort to stock caricature, didactic speaking over characters, repetitive leitmotifs, and so on. The truly unhostaged writer, such as Chekhov, is rare." — James Wood, Human, all too inhuman, New Republic, Jul 24, 2000.

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adjective

1. Teaching morality: didactical, moral, moralizing. See teach/learn.
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively: didactical, preachy. See teach/learn.

didactic [dy‐dak‐tik], instructive; designed to impart information, advice, or some doctrine of morality or philosophy. Much of the most ancient surviving literature is didactic, containing genealogies, proverbial wisdom, and religious instruction. Most European literary works of the Middle Ages have a strong didactic element, usually expounding doctrines of the Church. Practical advice has often been presented in verse, as in the Georgics (37–30 BCE) of Virgil, which give advice on farming, and in the imitative georgics of the 18th century. Since the ascendancy of Romanticism and Aestheticism in the 19th century, didactic writing has been viewed unfavourably as foreign to true art, so that the term didacticism refers (usually pejoratively) to the use of literary means to a doctrinal end. Some imaginative works still contain practical information, however: B. S. Johnson's novel Christie Malry's Own Double Entry (1973) contains precise instructions for the manufacture of petrol bombs. The boundaries of didactic literature are open to dispute, since both the presence and the prominence of doctrinal content are subject to differing interpretations. In the broadest sense, most allegories and satires implying a moral or political view may be regarded as didactic, along with many other kinds of work in which the theme embodies some philosophical or other belief of the author. A stricter definition would confine the term to those works that explicitly tell readers what they should do. See also propagandism.

designed or intended to teach; intended to convey instruction and information

IN BRIEF: Intended to teach a moral lesson.

In the opinion of many students, the professor's didactic approach was too heavy.

Didactic

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - didaktisk, docerende

Nederlands (Dutch)
didactisch (onderwijskundig), belerend

Français (French)
adj. - didactique

Deutsch (German)
adj. - didaktisch, Lehr-, schulmeisterhaft

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - διδακτικός, δασκαλίστικος

Italiano (Italian)
didattico

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - didático

Русский (Russian)
дидактический

Español (Spanish)
adj. - didáctico

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - didaktisk, undervisande

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
教诲的, 说教的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 教誨的, 說教的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 지도하고 싶어하는, 교훈적인

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 教訓的な, お説教好きな

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(صفه) تعليمي, مصمم لغرض التعليم, معامل القراء أو الجمهور كالطفل في المدرسه, مواعظي ( مسرف في إلقاء المواعظ على الآخرين)‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮דידקטי, מאלף, לימודי, משעמם, קפדן (אדם)‬

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