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It’s no hot take to say that the original pundits were highly learned scholars and teachers in India; it’s just a statement of fact. Our English word pundit comes from the Hindi word paṇḍit, a term of respect (and sometimes an honorary title) for a wise person, especially one with knowledge of philosophy, religion, and law; its ultimate source is the Sanskrit word paṇḍita, meaning “learned.” English speakers have used pundit to refer to sages of India since the 1600s, but as is typically done with English, they eventually pushed the word into new semantic territory. By the late 1800s, pundit could also refer to a member of what is sometimes called the commentariat or punditocracy—that is, the collective group of political commentators, financial analysts, and newspaper columnists often paid to share their views on a variety of subjects.
Examples of pundit in a Sentence
Nick Danby, National Review, 20 Dec. 2024
Many market pundits have concluded that stablecoins are the the killer app in digital assets delivering the fiat on and off ramps to Web3.0.
—Lawrence Wintermeyer, Forbes, 19 Dec. 2024
The public did the opposite — and so have a number of politicians and pundits.
—Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 16 Dec. 2024
Combustible pundit Nancy Grace has long languished in YouTube irrelevancy, but her hyper-sensational show makes a fitting vehicle for this white-hot topic.
—Joe Berkowitz, Vulture, 15 Dec. 2024
See all Example Sentences for pundit 
Dictionary Entries Near pundit
Cite this Entry
“Pundit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pundit. Accessed 27 Dec. 2024.
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