A.Word.A.Day--persnickety

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The Magic of Words

Jun 22, 2010

This week's theme
Words to describe people

This week's words
weathercock
persnickety

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

persnickety

PRONUNCIATION:

(puhr-SNIK-i-tee)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Fussy about minor details.
2. Snobbish.
3. Requiring keen attention to detail, as a job.

ETYMOLOGY:

Variant of pernickety (the spelling still used in the UK). Of unknown origin.

USAGE:

"My father and I are both persnickety. We don't like noise in the kitchen, and a few grains of salt on a tablecloth make us shiver."
Cedric Vongerichten; Le Fils; New York Magazine; Sep 20, 2009.

"And what will the filmmakers eventually get for more than 12 hours of painstaking persnickety work?"
Tina Maples; "Dillinger: Gangsters Hit the Library For a Long Shoot; Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin); May 28, 1990.

Explore "persnickety" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Men have slow reflexes. In general it takes several generations later for them to understand. -Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)

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