Word.ws English Dictionary

finicky

Syllables: fin·ick·y/ˈfɪnɪki/

finicky adjective: fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.

Adjective

finicky (comparative finickier or more finicky, superlative finickiest or most finicky)

  1. (informal) Fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.
    • My editor is very finicky about punctuation. Every dot and comma has to be just right.
    • She has a finicky baby that's hard to feed.
  2. (informal) Demanding; requiring above-normal care.
    • The lawnmower is a bit finicky in cold weather.
    • Instead of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cream Cheese Pie Crust from her addictingly finicky The Pie and Pastry Bible, I decided to make her Sour Cream Crust.2009 July 13, Evan Kleiman, “Pie-a-Day #20 & #21: Cherry Pie and Sour Cream Ice Cream Pie”, in KCRW, archived from the original on 03 Jun 2025

finicky meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

finicky in Bengali

অতিশয় খুঁতখুঁতে, তুচ্ছ বিষয়ে অতি যত্নশীল, যাকে সন্তুষ্ট করা কঠিন

finicky in Malayalam

punctilious, fussy, fastidious
നിസ്സാരകാര്യങ്ങളിൽ അതിശ്രദ്ധയുള്ള, നിസ്സാരകാര്യങ്ങളിൽ അധികം നിഷ്ഠയുള്ള, തൃപ്തിപ്പെടുത്താൻ കഴിയാത്ത, നിഷ്കൃഷ്ടമായ അഭിരുചികളുള്ള, കൃത്യതയുള്ള, അതിസൂക്ഷ്മദൃഷ്ടിയായ

finicky in Kannada

ಅಚ್ಚುಕಟ್ಟಿನ, ಚಡಪಡಿಸುವ

Examples of finicky in a sentence

  • One of this library's dependencies is very finicky. It can be hard to get it to compile on some systems.
  • Many Americans have become olive aficionados, finicky about their picholines and arbequinas, Kalamatas and Cerignolas.
  • An orange-blossom-water sabayon is thickened in the microwave (and I will never again make finicky sabayon any other way).

All 10 example sentences with finicky

Synonyms of finicky

15 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of finicky

Forms of finicky

comparativefinickier
comparativemore finicky
superlativefinickiest
superlativemost finicky

Origin of finicky

From finick (“to work in a fastidious manner, wasting time over unnecessary details”) + -y. Compare finicking, finical, and dated finikin. Perhaps suggested by obsolete Dutch fijnkens (“accurately, neatly, prettily”) (modern Dutch fijntjes). Compare also Sicilian finicchiu.

Words formed from finicky

Questions about finicky

What does finicky mean?
Finicky means fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.
What is finicky in Bengali?
Finicky in Bengali is অতিশয় খুঁতখুঁতে, তুচ্ছ বিষয়ে অতি যত্নশীল, যাকে সন্তুষ্ট করা কঠিন. See Finicky meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is finicky?
Finicky is an adjective.
How do you pronounce finicky?
Finicky is pronounced /ˈfɪnɪki/.

Words near finicky in the dictionary

  1. finickingly
  2. finickingness
  3. finickings
  4. finickity
  5. finicks
  6. finicky
  7. finicretaceous
  8. finif
  9. finiff
  10. finiffs
  11. finified

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: finicky (page history and authors); Finicky (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); finicky (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); finicky (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-finicky.wav.

Cite this entry: “finicky.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/finicky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.