English Explanatory Dictionary

fastidious

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Excessively particular, demanding, or fussy about details, especially about tidiness and cleanliness.
  2. Overly concerned about tidiness and cleanliness.
  3. Difficult to please; quick to find fault.
  4. Having precise requirements for nutrition and environment (chemical and physical); especially, being difficult to culture because of those requirements.

Pronunciation

/fæsˈtɪdi.əs/ /fəsˈtɪdi.əs/ en-us-fastidious.ogg en-au-fastidious.ogg

Word forms

fastidious more fastidious most fastidious

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin fastīdiōsus (“passive: that feels disgust, disdainful, scornful, fastidious; active: that causes disgust, disgusting, loathsome”), from fastīdium (“a loathing, aversion, disgust, niceness of taste, daintiness, etc.”), perhaps for *fastutidium, from fastus (“disdain, haughtiness, arrogance, disgust”) + taedium (“disgust”). Cf. French fastidieux.

Synonyms

anal-retentive choosy conscientious dainty exacting fastidious finical finicking finickity finicky finikin fussy hypercritical lily-handed meticulous niggly nitpickish nit-picky nitty overcritical overscrupulous particular pedantic pernickety persnickety picky

Antonyms

careless noncritical nonfastidious sloppy unconscientious uncritical unfastidious unfussy unmeticulous

Related words

finicky methodical prissy pedant

Derived words

fastidiously fastidiousness fastidious organism hyperfastidious nonfastidious overfastidious ultrafastidious unfastidious
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on F Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary