Dryasdust was an imaginary and tediously thorough literary authority cited by Sir Walter Scott to present background information in his novels; thereafter, a derisory term for anyone who presents historical facts with no feeling for the personalities involved.

“Dryasdust” is mentioned in a whole introductory chapter of Thomas Carlyle’s Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, this chapter being entitled “Anti-Dryasdust.” It is continually referenced, as Carlyle depicts history being surrendered to Dryasdust.

Jonathan Oldbuck, Miniver Cheevy, Pre-Raphaelite, academic, antiquarian, antiquary, antique collector, antique dealer, antique-car collector, archaeologist, archaist, arid, barren, blah, blank, bloodless, bookish, bore, broken-record, bromidic, buttonholer, characterless, classicist, cold, colorless, crashing bore, dead, devoted to studies, diligent, dismal, donnish, drag, draggy, drearisome, dreary, drip, dry, dull, dusty, effete, elephantine, empty, etiolated, everlasting, fade, flat, flat tire, frightful bore, harping, headache, heavy, ho-hum, hollow, humdrum, inane, inexcitable, insipid, invariable, jejune, jog-trot, laudator temporis acti, leaden, lifeless, long-winded, low-spirited, mandarin, medievalist, monotonous, nuisance, owlish, pale, pallid, pedantic, pedestrian, pest, pill, plodding, pointless, poky, ponderous, professorial, prolix, proser, rabbinic, scholarly, scholastic, singsong, slow, solemn, spiritless, sterile, stiff, stodgy, studious, stuffy, superficial, tasteless, tedious, treadmill, twaddler, uneventful, uninteresting, unlively, unvarying, vapid, weariful, wearisome, wet blanket, wooden