Careful vs Punctilious - What's the difference?
careful | punctilious | Related terms |
(obsolete) Full of care or grief; sorrowful, sad.
*, Bk.V:
*:‘Alas,’ sayde Sir Cadore, ‘now carefull is myne herte that now lyeth dede my cosyn that I beste loved.’
(obsolete) Full of cares or anxiety; worried, troubled.
*1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.1:
*:Where through long watch, and late daies weary toile, / She soundly slept, and carefull thoughts did quite assoile.
Having care (for); attentive to potential danger, error or harm; cautious.
:He was a slow and careful driver.
Conscientious and painstaking; meticulous.
:They made a careful search of the crime scene.
Strictly attentive to detail; meticulous or fastidious, particularly to codes or conventions.
Precise or scrupulous; finicky or nitpicky.
* 2009 , Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson and Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Semantics: an introduction to meaning in language
Careful is a related term of punctilious.
As adjectives the difference between careful and punctilious
is that careful is (obsolete) full of care or grief; sorrowful, sad while punctilious is strictly attentive to detail; meticulous or fastidious, particularly to codes or conventions.careful
English
Alternative forms
* carefull (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)Synonyms
* See also * See alsoAntonyms
* carelessDerived terms
* carefullypunctilious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- With a punctilious slap of the gloves, the duel was now inevitable.
- Of course, humans do not treat time in such a punctilious fashion.