precisiann.adj.

1571 Abp. M. Parker Let. 21 Jan. in Corr. (1853) (modernized text) 377 That inconvenience that Mr Mullyns..should openly tell the precisians that her Highness' sword should be compelled to cut off this stubborn multitude.

1572 J. Jones Bathes of Bathes Ayde iii. f. 24 The Puritanes, but better we may terme them piuish precisians.

1583 P. Stubbes Second Pt. Anat. Abuses sig. P3^v These presicians would haue all things remoued out of the Church which haue beene abused to Idolatrie.

1612 M. Drayton Poly-olbion vi. 94 Like our Precisions..Who for some Crosse or Saint they in the window see Will pluck downe all the Church.

1616 B. Jonson Every Man in his Humor (rev. ed.) iii. iii, in Wks. I. 36 H'is no precisian, that I am certaine of. Nor rigid Roman-catholicke..I haue heard him sweare.

a1652 R. Brome Eng. Moor v. iii. 85 in Five New Playes (1659) Forgiv' me for swearing, and turn Precisian, and pray I' the nose that all my brethren..spend no worse.

1701 T. Brown Life Comedian Jo. Haynes 61 Jo. turn'd Precisian, wearing a plain band, and following the Law under the Name of an Attorney.

1725 I. Watts Logick i. vi. §3 A profane person calls a man of piety a precisian.

1763 W. Warburton Doctr. Grace (ed. 2) cix. 143 As a precious Metal, which had undergone its trial in the fire, and left all its dross behind, the Sect, with great propriety, changed its name, from Precisian to Puritan.

1821 W. Scott Kenilworth I. vii. 158 Here is what neither papist nor puritan, latitudinarian nor precisian, ever boggles or makes mouths at.

1893 T. Fowler Hist. Corpus Christi Coll. 137 Precisian as Cole was, he does not seem to have objected to card-playing.

1928 M. L. Cozens Handbk. of Heresies 36 Those who stood fast to the definitions..of Nicaea were over-rigid precisians.

1997 16th Cent. Jrnl. 28 712 In the early 1580s, Bancroft had prepared a refutation of the ‘Precisians’ (Presbyterians) and the Separatist Robert Browne.

2005 Olympian (Nexis) 20 Apr. 3 a I hope that in spite of the drive of liberal Catholics to allow priests to marry, ordain women to priesthood, etc., he [sc. Pope Benedict XVI] will remain a precisian in upholding the traditional doctrine of the Catholic faith embraced by his predecessor.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor (1623) ii. i. 5 Though Loue vse Reason for his precisian, hee admits him not for his Counsailour. View more context for this quotation]

1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Precisian,..one who limits or restrains.

1834 R. Southey Doctor II. 170 A man may dwell upon words till he becomes at length a mere precisian in speech.

1862 C. Merivale Hist. Romans under Empire VII. lxii. 158 He went over to the Stoics, set up for an austere precisian, and a professed opponent of the..government.

1894 K. Grahame Pagan Papers 46 A formal precisian..during business hours.

1920 M. Beerbohm Let. 18 June (1988) 116 You are such a precisian and a Zoilean that it's a joy to catch you tripping.

1953 Times 5 Dec. 7/7 In spite of such errors of taste as only a pedant and precisian can achieve, it must be recognized that there were good painters among them.

1978 P. Howard Weasel Words 23 One of the blessings..of writing for The Times is that one's readers include the sharpest-eyed precisians in the world of letters.

2001 Times 24 July ii. 6/1 It was a bible for precisians and pedants as well as for less ferocious mortals trying to keep their writing up to scratch.

c1610 Jok Uplandis Newis 3.a Odious to the comon people & puritaine brethrene sighing sisteris and preseisiane simple willfullistes.

1616 T. Adams Divine Herball iii. 85 A wicked Polititian in a ruffe of Precisian set.

1651 N. Biggs Matæotechnia Medicinæ Praxeωs §18 Like the dull præcisian pædagogues to the ferulæ and pedantick Tyranny of the Stagirite.

1882 Sat. Rev. in C. Annandale Imperial Dict. A martyr to the political strategy of a precisian government.

1970 J. A. Baker Foolishness of God vii. 150 The picture conjured up by such a hypothesis is, however, artificial and precisian, not to say precious.

1998 Hist. Jrnl. 41 36 Hacket's allergy to the rags and relics of Rome eventually induced him to forsake his own parish and defect to the adjacent village of Stoke Doyle instead. Even there he and his band of followers exhibited precisian scruples.

a1652 R. Brome Weeding of Covent-Garden i. i. 7 in Five New Playes (1659) And what of that in your precisianical wisdom?

1573 Abp. M. Parker Let. 15 July in Corr. (1853) (modernized text) 436 Their manifest precisianship, is too intolerable.

1575 Abp. M. Parker Let. 17 Mar. in Corr. (1853) (modernized text) 476 Saving for the common precisianship in London, I hear of no sects.