punctilious
English
editEtymology
editFrom punctilio (“fine point in exactness of conduct”) + -ous.
Pronunciation
edit- IPA(key): /pʌŋkˈtɪli.əs/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Adjective
editpunctilious (comparative more punctilious, superlative most punctilious)
- 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.
- 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
editRelated terms
editTranslations
editstrictly attentive to detail
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precise
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Further reading
edit- “punctilious”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.