circumstantiality

Noun

circumstantiality (countable and uncountable, plural circumstantialities)

1. (uncountable) Extreme attention to minute or irrelevant detail.
   • Plushkin's list was distinguished by a conciseness of exposition which had led to certain of the items being represented merely by Christian name, patronymic, and a couple of dots; and Sobakevitch's list was remarkable for its amplitude and circumstantiality, in that not a single peasant had such...1842, Nikolai Gogol, translated by C. J. Hogarth, Dead Souls, chapter 7
2. (countable) A minor detail or circumstantial matter.
   • There was much discussion at the time, in some of the public journals, upon the possibility of reconciling these incidents with other circumstantialities of the case, supposing that only one man had been concerned in the affair. That there was only one man concerned, seems to be certain.1854, Thomas De Quincey, Postscript