fastidious
fas·ti·dious
adjective
giving and careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness
- “a fastidious and incisive intellect”
- “fastidious about personal cleanliness”
having complicated nutritional requirements; especially growing only in special artificial cultures
- “fastidious microorganisms”
- “certain highly specialized xerophytes are extremely exacting in their requirements”
Origin
Borrowed from Latin fastīdiōsus (“passive: that feels disgust, disdainful, scornful, fastidious; active: that causes disgust, disgusting, loathsome”), from fastīdium (“a loathing, aversion, disgust, niceness of taste, daintiness, etc.”), perhaps for *fastutidium, from fastus (“disdain, haughtiness, arrogance, disgust”) + taedium (“disgust”). Cf. French fastidieux.
Phrases
- fastidious organism
Related words
Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.