Etymology

pernickety

P3E1R1N1I1C3K5E1T1Y4

Today it means: Fussy; paying undue attention to minor details; fastidious. Full definition →

Scots pernickety
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The story

  1. Scots · borrowed frompernickety
  2. English todaypernickety

From Scots pernickety, persnickety, apparently from per- + nick (“a notch, mark, cutting retort”) + -et (“-ed”) + -y; equivalent to English per- + nick + -ety; literally, “marked up”, then “overly precise”. The alternative form persnickety, with s, may be due to substitution of Scots sneck (“a cut, notch”) for nick. Compare also Scots variants pernicked, pernicket, pirnicky, and pernicky.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.