Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Showing or acting with careful attention to detail.
  • adjective Difficult to please; exacting.
  • adjective Excessively scrupulous or sensitive, as in taste, propriety, or neatness: synonym: meticulous.
  • adjective Microbiology Having complex nutritional requirements.

from The Century Dictionary.

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

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Difficult to please; delicate to a fault; suited with difficulty; squeamish

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having complicated nutritional requirements; especially growing only in special artificial cultures
  • adjective giving careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, squeamish, particular, haughty, from Old French fastidieux, from Latin fastīdiōsus, from fastīdium, squeamishness, haughtiness, probably from fastus, disdain.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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Examples

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

    The Falcons of Montabard Chadwick, Elizabeth 2004

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

    The Ranch at the Wolverine 1914

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

    Penrod and Sam Booth Tarkington 1907

  • 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 Anonymous 1812

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

    Wrong Planet Asperger / Autism Forums 2008

  • 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 2005

  • 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 Richard Doddridge 2004

  • 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 1964

  • 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 Booth Tarkington 1907

  • 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; a Romance of Exmoor 1862

Comments

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  • slowidious

    February 2, 2009

  • 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.

    March 24, 2009

  • I can be a quite a fastidious director.

    June 14, 2010

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

    February 20, 2013