A peant, or pædant, is a person who is overly concerned with formalism and precision, or who makes a show of learning. The corresponding (obsolete) female noun is pedantess. The term comes from the French pédant (1566 in Darme & Hatzfeldster's Dictionnaire général de la langue française) or its source Italian pedante "teacher," schoolmaster, pedant. (Compare the Spanish pedante.). The origin of the Italian term is uncertain. The first element is apparently the same as in pedagogue (a teacher) etc.; and it has been suggested that pedante was contracted from the medieval Latin pædagogans, present participle of pædagogare "to act as pedagogue, to teach" (Du Cange); but evidence is wanting. The Latin word is derived from Greek παιδαγογός, < παιδ- "child" + αγειν "to lead", which originally referred to a slave who led children to and from school but later meant "a source of instruction or guidance".