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  1. fastidious love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Possessing or displaying careful, meticulous attention to detail.
  2. adj. Difficult to please; exacting.
  3. adj. Excessively scrupulous or sensitive, especially in matters of taste or propriety. See Synonyms at meticulous.
  4. adj. Microbiology Having complicated nutritional requirements.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. 1. Such as to cause disgust or loathing; loathsome.
  2. Hard or difficult to please; squeamish; over-nice in selecting or discriminating; difficult to suit: as, a fastidious mind or taste.
  3. Synonyms Nice, Dainty, etc. See nice.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Excessively particular, demanding, or fussy about details, especially about tidiness and cleanliness.
  2. adj. Difficult to please; quick to find fault.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Difficult to please; delicate to a fault; suited with difficulty; squeamish.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. having complicated nutritional requirements; especially growing only in special artificial cultures
  2. adj. giving careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness

Etymologies

  1. From Latin fastidiosus ("passive: that feels disgust, disdainful, scornful, fastidious; active: that causes disgust, disgusting, loathsome"), from fastidium ("a loathing, aversion, disgust, niceness of taste, daintiness, etc."), perhaps for *fastutidium, from fastus ("disdain, haughtiness, arrogance, disgust") + taedium ("disgust"). Confer French fastidieux. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, squeamish, particular, haughty, from Old French fastidieux, from Latin fastīdiōsus, from fastīdium, squeamishness, haughtiness, probably from fastus, disdain. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “He stopped to wait for the prisoners to pass, his expression fastidious and filled with contempt.”

    The Falcons of Montabard

  • “Ward had certain fastidious instincts, and he rebelled inwardly at eating, sleeping, and cooking all in one small room.”

    The Ranch at the Wolverine

  • “His palate is tender, and, in one sense, might be called fastidious; nothing is more sensitive or more easily shocked.”

    Penrod and Sam

  • “Aware of their importance to herself, she carefully cherished, but never made them subjects of conversation, nor gave the world an opportunity of censuring what they would have termed her fastidious notions; her religious opinions were never obtruded upon slight acquaintance, and it was only her more particular friends who, beside her family, could form any judgment of her principles, save from her moral conduct.”

    Yamboo; or, the North American Slave

  • “They are called fastidious and I think their problems have something to do with ASD.”

    Wrong Planet Asperger / Autism Forums

  • “And they'd be especially outraged because the cops hadn't treated me with the kind of fastidious, hands-off politeness that they'd never expect from a retail clerk.”

    Only What You Bring With You

  • “In the courtyard I saw a little cart, with iron brakes underneath it, such as fastidious people use to deaden the jolting of the road; but few men under a lord or baronet would be so particular.”

    Lorna Doone

  • “Knight had already indicated a correlation of the need of micro-organisms for "growth-factors" with failure of synthesis, and correlated this failure with evolution, particularly in relation to the complex environment of "fastidious" pathogenic micro-organisms.”

    Edward Tatum - Nobel Lecture

  • “Ramsey was already dangerously distended, as an effect of the earlier part of her discourse, and the word "fastidious" almost exploded him; but upon the climax, "Dora Yocum," he blew up with a shattering report and, leaving fragments of incoherence ricocheting behind him, fled shuddering from the house.”

    Ramsey Milholland

  • “Mr Coe said Mrs Laithwaite managed the accounts for their sons' business and described her as "fastidious" with money.”

    WalesOnline - Home

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘fastidious’.

Comments

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  • VerbalElation Having high and often capricious standards : difficult to please. Excessively particular, critical, or demanding. Overly concerned about cleanliness Feb 20, 2013

  • eyang I can be a quite a fastidious director. Jun 14, 2010

  • Prolagus Fastidioso means irritating; fastidious is pignolo.

    He's so fastidious, I'd stab him just to let him die for the blood stains on the floor. Mar 24, 2009

  • fbharjo slowidious
    Feb 1, 2009

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‘fastidious’ has been looked up 9693 times, loved by 30 people, added to 211 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.