fastidious

adjective fas·tid·i·ous \ fa-ˈsti-dē-əs , fə- \

|Updated on: 19 Jul 2018

Examples: fastidious in a Sentence

Editor's Note: fastidious Has a Disgusting Past

Definition of fastidious

1 a : showing or demanding excessive delicacy or care

fastidious attention to detail
—Robert Evett

b : reflecting a meticulous, sensitive, or demanding attitude

fastidious workmanship

c : having high and often capricious standards : difficult to please

critics … so fastidious that they can talk only to a small circle of initiates
—Granville Hicks

2 : having complex nutritional requirements

fastidious microorganisms

3 archaic : scornful

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fastidiously

adverb

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fastidiousness

noun

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Examples of fastidious in a Sentence

My mother had always been the most fastidious and organized of people—a wet ring left on her coffee table by a glass could drive her to distraction. —John B. Judis, New Republic, 14 Oct. 1996
"I'll stop off and get us a sandwich," said Matthew. … Tony, a fastidious eater, sighed. —Penelope Lively, City of the Mind, 1991
Though he prides himself on being hip, he is too fastidious to do anything dangerous or dirty. —Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984
He is fastidious about keeping the house clean.
She was too fastidious to do anything that might get her dirty.

Recent Examples of fastidious from the Web

Choices here may reflect his gallery’s aesthetic: cogent, skewed, color-charged, fastidious, and sometimes darkly wacky.

— BostonGlobe.com, "The week ahead: music, theater, art, and more," 13 July 2018
His colleagues are annoying misfits, described by their quirks, like the fastidious Fredrik Melander, who has a photographic memory, passionately loves his ugly wife, and spends too much time on the toilet.

— alice bolin, Longreads, "The Daughter as Detective," 26 June 2018
Further, few religions are as centralized or as fastidious about record keeping as the Catholic Church.

— peter smith, Philly.com, "Victims' advocates: Abuse not just a 'Catholic problem'," 25 June 2018
By the late 1940s, dozens of medical journal articles described people with colitis as immature, fastidious, mother-clinging obsessives.

— jim carrier, STAT, "Lobotomies were once used to treat this gut disease, part of a shameful medical history," 12 June 2018
Within its six sprawling exhibition levels, flooded with streaming natural light, Torre will be a feast even for the most demanding and fastidious art connaisseur.

— tiziana cardini, Vogue, "Touring Torre, the Impressive New Addition at Milan’s Fondazione Prada," 19 Apr. 2018
Off the shelf, any good kitchen knife will be sharp, but the fastidious construction process and attention to detail is what (supposedly) makes Mizuno’s superior.

— aaron gulley, Outside Online, "Shimano Unveils New XTR 9100 Components," 29 May 2018
Would someone better credentialed or more fastidious dump out that water and boil fresh water to cook eggs?

— amiel stanek, Bon Appetit, "A $50 (Kinda) Brunch You Can Make Even When You’re Extremely Hungover," 24 May 2018
The girl is Jay Barton, 14 when the book begins and living as a kind of second-class citizen with her rich, unscrupulous Uncle Bill, along with his fastidious, social-climbing wife and Bill’s pretty blond daughter, Michaela.

— WSJ, "Children’s Books: Reaching for It," 18 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fastidious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

fastidious Has a Disgusting Past

There's nothing offensive about fastidious workmanship, and yet the word fastidious traces to the Latin noun fastidium, meaning "aversion" or "disgust." "Fastidium" itself is probably a combination of the Latin words fastus, meaning "arrogance," and taedium, meaning "irksomeness" or "disgust."("Taedium" also gave us our "tedium.") In keeping with its Latin roots, fastidious once meant "haughty," "disgusting," and "disgusted," although those uses are now archaic or obsolete. The word came to be applied to someone who is squeamish or overly difficult to please, and later, to work which reflects a demanding or precise attitude.

Origin and Etymology of fastidious

Middle English, from Latin fastidiosus, from fastidium disgust, probably from fastus arrogance (probably akin to Latin fastigium top) + taedium irksomeness — more at tedium

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at sense 3

See Words from the same year