finicky
/ˈfɪnɪki
/adjective
1(Of a person) fussy about their needs or requirements: a finicky eater...
- Success in that business comes not by understanding and meeting the demands of millions of finicky customers, but by cementing relationships with and winning the support of a handful of powerful decision-makers.
- He'll have to offer higher levels of service than he's used to, catering to finicky women who often demand multiple alterations.
- He said: ‘Sky-divers are finicky people, and are incredibly safety conscious.’
Synonyms
fussy, fastidious, punctilious, over-particular, hard to please, overcritical, difficult, awkward, exacting, demanding, perfectionist;
Scottish & Irish pass-remarkable
informal picky, choosy, pernickety
North American informal persnickety
archaic nice
1.1Showing or requiring great attention to detail: his finicky copperplate hand...
- It is an arena in which far too much time is being spent attending to finicky details within details.
- And then - shocker - it turned out that the roboprojectors were finicky and unreliable and required careful, skilled supervision.
- But getting the figures and tables right, looking up all the data and resolving all the discrepancies - it's all finicky detail work.
Derivatives
finickiness
Origin
Early 19th century: from finical + -y1.
- Bible-thumper
- Bible-thumping
- biblical
- biblically
- biblicist
- biblio-
- bibliog.
- bibliographer
- bibliographic
- bibliographical
- bibliographically
- bibliography
- bibliolater
- bibliolatrous
- bibliolatry
- bibliomancy
- bibliomane
- bibliomania
- bibliomaniac
- bibliometric
- bibliometrics
- bibliophile
- bibliophilic
- bibliophily
- bibliopole