Adjacent Words

Fastidious definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FASTID'IOUS, a. [L. fastidiousus, from fastidio, to disdain from fastus, haughtiness. See Heb.]
1. Disdainful; squeamish; delicate to a fault; over nice; difficult to please; as a fastidious mind or taste.
2. Squeamish; rejecting what is common or not very nice; suited with difficulty; as a fastidious appetite.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: giving careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness; "a fastidious and incisive intellect"; "fastidious about personal cleanliness" [ant: unfastidious]
2: having complicated nutritional requirements; especially growing only in special artificial cultures; "fastidious microorganisms"; "certain highly specialized xerophytes are extremely exacting in their requirements" [syn: fastidious, exacting] [ant: unfastidious]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Latin fastidiosus, from fastidium disgust, probably from fastus arrogance (probably akin to Latin fastigium top) + taedium irksomeness — more at tedium Date: 15th century 1. archaic scornful 2. a. having high and often capricious standards ; difficult to please <critics…so fastidious that they can talk only to a small circle of initiates — Granville Hicks> b. showing or demanding excessive delicacy or care c. reflecting a meticulous, sensitive, or demanding attitude <fastidious workmanship> 3. having complex nutritional requirements <fastidious microorganisms> • fastidiously adverb • fastidiousness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 very careful in matters of choice or taste; fussy. 2 easily disgusted; squeamish. Derivatives: fastidiously adv. fastidiousness n. Etymology: ME f. L fastidiosus f. fastidium loathing

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fastidious Fas*tid"i*ous, a. [L. fastidiosus disdainful, fr. fastidium loathing, aversion, perh. fr. fastus arrogance (of uncertain origin) + taedium loathing. Cf. Tedious, Fash.] Difficult to please; delicate to a fault; suited with difficulty; squeamish; as, a fastidious mind or ear; a fastidious appetite. Proud youth ! fastidious of the lower world. --Young. Syn: Squeamish; critical; overnice; difficult; punctilious. Usage: Fastidious, Squeamish. We call a person fastidious when his taste or feelings are offended by trifling defects or errors; we call him squeamish when he is excessively nice or critical on minor points, and also when he is overscrupulous as to questions of duty. ``Whoever examines his own imperfections will cease to be fastidious; whoever restrains his caprice and scrupulosity will cease to be squeamish.'' --Crabb. -- Fas*tid"i*ous*ly, adv. -- Fas*tid"i*ous*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If you say that someone is fastidious, you mean that they pay great attention to detail because they like everything to be very neat, accurate, and in good order. ...her fastidious attention to historical detail... He was fastidious about his appearance. = meticulous ADJ 2. If you say that someone is fastidious, you mean that they are concerned about keeping clean to an extent that many people consider to be excessive. Be particularly fastidious about washing your hands before touching food. ADJ • fastidiously Ernestine kept her daughters fastidiously clean. ADV

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Squeamish, difficult, queasy, critical, dainty, over-nice, over-delicate, hard to please.

Moby Thesaurus

accurate, appreciative, bleached, bright, careful, censorious, choicy, choosy, civilized, clean, cleanly, conscientious, critical, cultivated, cultured, dainty, delicate, differential, difficult, dirt-free, discriminate, discriminating, discriminative, distinctive, distinguishing, elegant, exact, exacting, fair, fine, finical, finicky, fresh, fussy, graceful, gracile, gracious, hypercritical, immaculate, kosher, meticulous, nice, nit-picking, nonpolluted, of cleanly habits, overconscientious, overscrupulous, particular, perfectionistic, picky, polished, precise, precisianistic, priggish, prudish, punctilious, punctual, pure, puristic, puritanic, refined, religious, ritually pure, scrupulous, selective, sensitive, shiny, smut-free, smutless, sophisticated, spotless, squeamish, stainless, strict, subtle, sweet, tactful, tahar, tender-conscienced, tubbed, unadulterated, unbesmirched, unblemished, unblotted, undefiled, unmuddied, unpolluted, unsmirched, unsmudged, unsoiled, unspotted, unstained, unsullied, untainted, untarnished, well-scrubbed, well-washed, white, whitened