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Fastidious vs Persnickety - What's the difference?

fastidious | persnickety |

As adjectives the difference between fastidious and persnickety

is that fastidious is excessively particular, demanding, or fussy about details, especially about tidiness and cleanliness while persnickety is fastidious or fussy.

fastidious

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Excessively particular, demanding, or fussy about details, especially about tidiness and cleanliness.
  • * 2008 , Robert Fisher, Memory Road , [http://books.google.com/books?id=TGyAvuZt5VoC&pg=PA37&dq=his+fastidious+nature+clean&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4WCLUNmDLbPF0AGpmoDgDQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBQ]:
    • His fastidious nature had been evident in his careful snipping of a customer's hair and now he guided his pencil with the same adroitness.
  • * 2004 , Maria Osborne Perr, Ravished Wings , [http://books.google.com/books?id=GEno70HQAQgC&pg=PA153&dq=his+fastidious+nature+clean&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4WCLUNmDLbPF0AGpmoDgDQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw]:
    • As she cleaned the room daily, she knew it was against his fastidious nature to bring or have food in his room.
  • * 2003 , Lynsay Sands, Single White Vampire :
  • * He had at first tried to clean up as they ate, his fastidious nature kicking in, but Chris had told him to just stop, he was blocking the TV.
  • Difficult to please; quick to find fault.
  • * 1897 , ,
    • "It's burn[t], M'sieur," said Marie Louise, politely, but decidedly, to the utter confusion of Mr. Billy, who was as mortified as could be at the failure of his dinner to please his fastidious little visitor.
  • * 1881 , ,
    • You're too fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich.

    Synonyms

    * (excessively particular) exacting, fussy, meticulous * See also

    See also

    * finicky

    External links

    * * *

    persnickety

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (US) Fastidious or fussy.
  • Obsessive about mundane details, demanding for precision.
  • *1905 , Katherine M. Yates, At the Door: A Tale to Read Both on the Lines and Between , K. M. Yates & Company, page 7:
  • *:Marjorie glanced up and down the long street. “Well, I never in my life saw so many different kinds of houses!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t they funny! Why, they look almost like people. Look at that little persnickety one over there — the white, white one with the green, green blinds — doesn’t it look exactly like —”
  • *1914 July 3, William H. Bowers, “The Use of ‘Tempest.’”, letter to the editor, in The Dial: A Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information , The Henry O. Shepard Co., volume LVII, page 47:
  • *:I have just read the article in your issue for May 16 on dialectic English. The word tempest recalls the surprise I felt at the beginning of three years' residence on Cape Cod to hear the word used commonly as an exact synonym for thunderstorm.
  • *:Persnickety'' I have been accustomed to use in the sense attached to ''perjinkety , that is, over-fastidious. I do not know how the word was acquired or how common its use is.
  • *1919 , Gertrude Harding, The Higher Aspect of Nursing , W. B. Saunders Company, pages 180–181:
  • *:Her free and easy association with her fellow nurses is prone to break down her womanly reserve and natural modesty. Her assiduity in clinging to ideals of modest begins to abate as a result. She is inclined to think she has been too “persnickety ;” that this is unnecessary when one understands “the naturalness of the physical body.” She wonders what is the use. And forthwith the foundation is laid for Moral Lenity .

    • Synonyms

    * See also