Definitions

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

  • adjective Scrupulously correct or neat; precise or meticulous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Precise; nice; finical; scrupulously neat.
  • Same as at point-device (which see, under point-device, n.).
  • noun Used only in the following phrase.

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

  • adjective Uncommonly nice and exact; precise; particular.
  • adverb obsolete Exactly.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English at point devis, probably from Old French *a point devis : a, to + point, point, moment + devis, fixed, arranged.]

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Examples

  • “Old!” exclaimed the knight; “now, by the gods and saints, if there be a gallant at the British Court more fancifully considerate, and more considerately fanciful, but quaintly curious, and more curiously quaint, in frequent changes of all rich articles of vesture, becoming one who may be accounted point-device a courtier, I will give you leave to term me a slave and a liar.”

    The Monastery 2008

  • "You are rather point-device in your accoustrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other."

    Suzyn Waldman really said this popfiend 2006

  • He was dressed point-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of the time, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty, with

    The Fortunes of Nigel 2004

  • Will you excuse them for the promise of something better when I have more leisure to be point-device?

    Life and Remains of John Clare "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" J. L. Cherry

  • When Angioletto had been assured of the nesting of his mate, he dressed himself point-device and went to Court to deliver his credentials.

    Little Novels of Italy Madonna Of The Peach-Tree, Ippolita In The Hills, The Duchess Of Nona, Messer Cino And The Live Coal, The Judgment Of Borso Maurice Henry Hewlett

  • Savory's tea-pots, and Messrs Dondney's _point-device_ men in buckram; while Mordan acquaints us, with much point, how many varieties he has invented of pencil-cases and toothpicks.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 339, January, 1844 Various

  • Short stories whose characters had turned to wood, essays which had refused to come to a point, poems in which laboured craftsmanship had numbed and weakened the original impact of beauty – all these presented themselves to my inverted brain in their finished form, masterly, unsmutched and point-device.

    Try Anything Twice 1938

  • A servant was sent to fetch Bunter, who came in looking imperturbably prim and point-device.

    The Unpleasantness At The Belladonna Club Sayers, Dorothy L.Lord Peter 05 1928

  • Civil -- well-horsed, conspicuously armed and point-device in their accoutrements -- sat stiff, silent, and vigilant in the mouth of an odd by-road.

    Jonah and Co. Dornford Yates 1922

  • He was of dapper appearance, point-device in everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.

    The Certain Hour James Branch Cabell 1918

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