Wiktionary

punctilious

English edit

WOTD – 20 July 2012

Etymology edit

From punctilio (“fine point in exactness of conduct”) +‎ -ous.

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /pʌŋkˈtɪli.əs/
    • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Adjective edit

punctilious (comparative more punctilious, superlative most punctilious)

  1. Strictly attentive to detail; meticulous or fastidious, particularly to codes or conventions.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:meticulous
    With a punctilious slap of the gloves, the duel was now inevitable.
    • 2001 May 12, Robert Potts, “The poet at play”, in The Guardian‎[1], →ISSN:
      He was punctilious. According to those who worked with him, even his paperwork was the best they'd seen.
  2. Precise or scrupulous; finicky or nitpicky.
    Synonyms: finicky, nitpicky, precise; see also Thesaurus:meticulous
    • 2009, Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson, Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Semantics: an introduction to meaning in language:
      Of course, humans do not treat time in such a punctilious fashion.
    • 2017, Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Pantheon Books, page 103:
      Every editor at Merriam-Webster deals with the Black Books at many points during their tenure. The Black Books are the in-house set of rules for writing a dictionary (commonly called a style guide) as conceived and written in punctilious detail by the former editor in chief Philip Babcock Gove, for the creation of Webster’s Third.

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

Translations edit

Further reading edit

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=punctilious&oldid=77732158"