Dictionary Definition
fastidious adj
1 giving and careful attention to detail; hard to
please; excessively concerned with cleanliness; "a fastidious and
incisive intellect"; "fastidious about personal cleanliness" [ant:
unfastidious]
2 having complicated nutritional requirements;
especially growing only in special artificial cultures; "fastidious
microorganisms"; "certain highly specialized xerophytes are
extremely exacting in their requirements" [syn: exacting] [ant: unfastidious]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
fastidieux, fastidiosus, from fastidium.Pronunciation
- /fæˈstɪdiəs/, /fəˈstɪdiəs/
- /f
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
accurate, appreciative, bleached, bright, careful, censorious, choicy, choosy, civilized, clean, cleanly, conscientious, critical, cultivated, cultured, dainty, delicate, differential, difficult, dirt-free, discriminate, discriminating, discriminative, distinctive, distinguishing, elegant, exact, exacting, fair, fine, finical, finicky, fresh, fussy, graceful, gracile, gracious, hypercritical, immaculate, kosher, meticulous, nice, nit-picking, nonpolluted, of cleanly
habits, overconscientious,
overscrupulous,
particular, perfectionistic,
picky, polished, precise, precisianistic, priggish, prudish, punctilious, punctual, pure, puristic, puritanic, refined, religious, ritually pure,
scrupulous, selective, sensitive, shiny, smut-free, smutless, sophisticated, spotless, squeamish, stainless, strict, subtle, sweet, tactful, tahar, tender-conscienced,
tubbed, unadulterated, unbesmirched, unblemished, unblotted, undefiled, unmuddied, unpolluted, unsmirched, unsmudged, unsoiled, unspotted, unstained, unsullied, untainted, untarnished, well-scrubbed,
well-washed, white,
whitened