punctilious
/pʌŋkˈtɪli.əs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.76 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Strictly attentive to detail; meticulous or fastidious, particularly to codes or conventions.
adj
Precise or scrupulous; finicky or nitpicky.
Example Sentences
- "With a punctilious slap of the gloves, the duel was now inevitable."
- "He was punctilious. According to those who worked with him, even his paperwork was the best they'd seen."
- "Of course, humans do not treat time in such a punctilious fashion."
- "Every editor at Merriam-Webster deals with the Black Books at many points during their tenure. The Black Books are the in-house set of rules for writing a dictionary (commonly called a style guide) as conceived and written in punctilious detail by the former editor in chief Philip Babcock Gove, for the creation of Webster’s Third."
Etymology
Etymology tree English punctilio Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.? Proto-Italic *-ŏ̄dsos? Old Latin -ōssus Latin -ōsus Old French -usbor. Middle English -ous English -ous English punctilious From punctilio (“fine point in exactness of conduct”) + -ous.
Inflected Forms
more punctilious (comparative)
most punctilious (superlative)