punctilious

English

WOTD – 20 July 2012

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʌŋkˈtɪli.əs/

Adjective

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.

2. Precise or scrupulous; finicky or nitpicky.

   Synonyms: finicky, nitpicky, precise; see also Thesaurus:meticulous

   • 2009, Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson and 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

• punctiliously
• punctiliousness

Related terms

• point
• punctuate
• punctual
• punctuality
• punctuation

Translations

strictly attentive to detail

• Armenian: բծախնդիր (hy) (bcaxndir), (informal) քթի մազ (hy) (kʻtʻi maz)
• Dutch: minutieus (nl)
• Finnish: pilkuntarkka (fi)
• French: pointilleux (fr) m
• German: pedantisch (de), minutiös (de), korrekt (de), förmlich (de), peinlich genau, überkorrekt
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: σχολαστικός (el) (scholastikós)
• Russian: щепети́льный (ru) (ščepetílʹnyj), церемо́нный (ru) (ceremónnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: pongail
• Spanish: punctilloso m

precise

• Dutch: precies (nl), pietepeuterig (nl)
• Finnish: pilkuntarkka (fi)
• German: pedantisch (de), genau (de), präzise (de)
• Russian: педанти́чный (ru) (pedantíčnyj)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Scottish Gaelic: pongail
• Spanish: punctilloso m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Spanish: ^{(please verify)} puntilloso (es)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Further reading

• “punctilious”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.