Too extreme to be merely academic, Brown's intelligent paintings are a strong second runner in this year's prize.

It's never healthy to have tax rates become merely academic.

Whether we're happy or unhappy about this situation is merely academic.

His work as a philologist was not merely academic or text-oriented, but animated by a commitment to teaching.

The question is not merely academic, given the roiling state of the Roman Catholic Church.

She claims her interest is merely academic, that what I tell her is only for her research.

In Australia, the meaning of "excise" is not merely academic, but has been the subject of numerous court cases.

For some bloggers, such an argument was merely academic.

Until in the end the question had been merely academic.

This book was intended for a broad, not merely an academic, audience.