pernickety
/pəˈnɪk.ɪ.ti/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/pəˈnɪk.ə.ti/
pernickety adjective: fussy; paying undue attention to minor details; fastidious.
Adjective
pernickety (comparative more pernickety, superlative most pernickety)
- Fussy; paying undue attention to minor details; fastidious.
- ‘You must forgive me,’ he said. ‘I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It’s very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I’m working I generally have to eat my meals...1953, Ian Fleming, chapter 8, in Casino Royale, page 48
- Synonyms:
- niggly, persnickety, anal-retentive, choosy, conscientious, dainty, exacting, fastidious, finical, finicking
- Requiring attention to minor details.
pernickety meaning in Malayalam and Kannada
pernickety in Malayalam
- difficult to please, fussy, difficult
- അതീവകൃത്യനിഷ്ഠയുള്ള, കണിശക്കാരനായ, കാര്യമില്ലാതെ ബഹളമുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന, ബഹളം കൂട്ടുന്ന, ആവശ്യമില്ലാതെ തിരക്കു കാണിക്കുന്ന, ആവശ്യത്തിലധികം തിരക്കു കാണിക്കുന്ന
pernickety in Kannada
- ಕುಸುಬಿಷ್ಟೆಯ, ಬೇಗ ಸಂತೋಷಪಡದ, ತಪ್ಪು ಕೆದಕುವ
Synonyms of pernickety
15 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of pernickety
| comparative | more pernickety |
|---|---|
| superlative | most pernickety |
| alternative form | persnickety |
Origin of pernickety
From Scots pernickety, persnickety, apparently from per- + nick (“a notch, mark, cutting retort”) + -et (“-ed”) + -y; equivalent to English per- + nick + -ety; literally, “marked up”, then “overly precise”. The alternative form persnickety, with s, may be due to substitution of Scots sneck (“a cut, notch”) for nick. Compare also Scots variants pernicked, pernicket, pirnicky, and pernicky.
Words formed from pernickety
Words that rhyme with pernickety
Questions about pernickety
- What does pernickety mean?
- Pernickety means fussy; paying undue attention to minor details; fastidious.
- What is pernickety in Malayalam?
- Pernickety in Malayalam is അതീവകൃത്യനിഷ്ഠയുള്ള, കണിശക്കാരനായ, കാര്യമില്ലാതെ ബഹളമുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന. See Pernickety meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is pernickety?
- Pernickety is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce pernickety?
- Pernickety is pronounced /pəˈnɪk.ɪ.ti/ (UK).
Words near pernickety in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pernickety (page history and authors); pernickety (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); pernickety (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-pernickety.wav.
Cite this entry: “pernickety.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pernickety. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.