doctrinaire

Etymology

Borrowed from French doctrinaire, from doctrine + -aire.

doctrinaire means stubbornly holding on to an idea without concern for practicalities or reality. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 76 out of 100.

Why this word is great

DOCTRINAIRE — [Adjective, Noun] Rigidly adhering to a theory or doctrine, especially in a dogmatic and impractical way; also, one who does so. Borrowed from French doctrinaire, from doctrine (from Latin doctrina, "teaching, learning") + -aire (agent suffix). Unlike pragmatic, which bends to circumstance, or dogmatic, which asserts from a throne of authority, the doctrinaire is a prisoner of the pristine blueprint, valuing ideological symmetry over lived reality. It is the chill of a perfectly drafted five-year plan meeting the chaos of a harvest, the revolutionary purging allies for ideological impurity while the state falls, the economist letting a model fail a nation rather than admit a flaw in its equations. This is the tragedy of a mind that loves the blueprint more than the building, ensuring it will never be lived in.

adj

Stubbornly holding on to an idea without concern for practicalities or reality.“Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. The word doctrinaire—word full of terror to the British mind—reappeared from time to time between his explosions.”

noun

A person who stubbornly holds to a philosophy or opinion regardless of its feasibility.“And he is not above feeling grave and well-contained satisfaction wherever the socialist doctrinaire has been contradicted by men attempting to practise coöperation in the midst of the competitive system, as in Belgium.”
In France, in 1815–30, one of a school who desired a constitution like that of Britain.