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Painstaking vs Finicky - What's the difference?

painstaking | finicky |

As adjectives the difference between painstaking and finicky

is that painstaking is carefully attentive to details; diligent in performing a process or procedure while finicky is fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.

As a noun painstaking

is the application of careful and attentive effort.

painstaking

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Carefully attentive to details; diligent in performing a process or procedure.
  • * Harris
    • All these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism.

    Synonyms

    * See also * See also

    Derived terms

    * painstakingly, painstakingness

    Noun

  • The application of careful and attentive effort.
  • *, II.10:
  • *:I esteeme Bocace'' his ''Decameron'', ''Rabelais'', and the kisses of ''John the second (if they may be placed under this title) worth the paines-taking to reade them.
  • * (Thomas Chalmers)
    • It is not by a flight of imagination that you gain the ascents of spiritual experience. It is by the toils and the watchings and the painstakings of a solid obedience.
  • * (Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham)
    • Behold what an abundant recompense attends the small processes of the earth, with the help of a little warm air; and what wealthy returns the industry of the husbandman and the florist is preparing from a few seeds and painstakings .

    finicky

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (informal) Fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.
    • ''The baby was finicky until her diaper was changed.
  • (informal) Demanding, requiring above-normal care.
    • The lawnmower is a bit finicky in cold weather.

    Usage notes

    * The forms (finickier) and (finickiest) also exist, but are quite rare, and perhaps nonstandard. The forms (term) and (term) are much more common, and certainly standard.

    Synonyms

    * fastidious, fussy * See

    Derived terms

    * finickiness * finickity