micrologicaladj.
/ˌmʌɪkrəˈlɒdʒᵻkl/, U.S. /ˌmaɪkroʊˈlɑdʒək(ə)l/ rare.
1. Characterized by investigation or argument which demonstrates close attention to detail.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > importance > unimportance > [adjective] > of little importance or trivial > types of > other
minor1612
good-for-little1724
micrological1847
1847 J. L. Motley in N. Amer. Rev. July 108 He [sc. Balzac] is..a micrological, misanthropical, skeptical philosopher.
1901 Econ. Jrnl. 11 279 He remained a unique exception to his generation, where micrological specialists alternate with ill-trained upstarts who assert anything and know nothing.
1992 Lit. & Ling. Computing 7 72/1 Micrological analysis is first of all an exquisitely philological affair.
1993 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 53 448 [His] work is largely responsible for the transition from the Kant-adaptation practised in German neo-Kantianism to the more scholarly oriented and ‘micrological’ reading that has characterized much of recent work on Kant.
2. = microscopic adj. 2a. Cf. micrology n. 2. Now rare. Perhaps disused.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > study > [adjective] > biology > branches of biology
micrological1848
biomechanical1856
micrographic1856
biodynamical1874
microbiological1880
geratologous1884
bacteriological1886
bacterioscopic1886
psychobiological1888
biometric1894
biopsychological1895
bacteriologic1896
biometrical1896
biophysical1896
bioeconomic1899
sociobiological1904
microbiologic1909
biomedical1921
metabiological1921
psychobiologic1921
bioecological1927
radiobiologic1929
radiobiological1931
sociobiological1947
biopsychosocial1951
virological1953
glycobiology1988
1848 W. H. Walshe in Todd's Cycl. Anat. & Physiol. IV. 71/2 The existing impulse towards micrological study.
1920 Amer. Jrnl. Anat. (title) A micrological investigation of the hair structure of the Monotremata.
1940 Science 5 Apr. 343/1 The carrying out of various micrological procedures under partial vacuum.
Derivatives
microˈlogically adv.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > importance > unimportance > [adverb] > of little importance or trivially
trivially1649
micrologically1872
1872 J. R. Lowell Milton in Prose Wks. (1890) IV. 88 (note) If things are to be scanned so micrologically, what weighty inferences might not be drawn.
1992 Lit. & Ling. Computing 7 73/2 The new philology will explode into a ‘language industry’ when our mind has analysed micrologically the elements and the steps of the macrological intuitions by which we grasp the global meaning of..a text.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.1847