迂腐

yūfǔ
adjective #33,852

Meanings

  1. 1 pedantic
  2. 2 stuffy and impractical
  3. 3 stubbornly attached to outdated ideas

Examples

Tā zhège rén tài yūfǔ le, yìdiǎn dōu bù línghuó.
He's so pedantic, completely inflexible.
Bié yòng nà zhǒng yūfǔ de fāngfǎ zuòshì.
Don't do things in such a stuffy, old-fashioned way.

Tips

memory
(yū) means 'roundabout / detoured' and (fǔ) means 'rotten/stale' — together: someone whose thinking takes long winding paths through stale ideas. The classic image is a Confucian scholar quoting books at problems that need common sense.
register
迂腐 is mildly negative — fine in conversation about a colleague or fictional character, but somewhat insulting if used to someone's face.

Stroke Order