- 1
If someone is pernickety, they worry too much about tiny things that most people would let go — a towel facing the wrong way, a on a plate, a word that is “not quite right”. It is about small points, not big moral rules: a pernickety person is , not wicked. The word is informal and sounds British; it is often a little fond, or a little tired, like you have lived with this habit. Americans usually say persnickety for the same idea. You can be pernickety about food, spelling, clothes, or how a room is arranged. People sometimes stretch it to mean “hard to please” in general, but the core picture is still fuss over details. Careful is the compliment; pernickety is the sigh.
吹毛求疵、過於挑剔（偏英式口語；美式同一意思多說 persnickety）
組成From Scots pernickety, also persnickety. It seems to be per- + nick (“a notch, a mark”) + a small ending, so the old picture is “all marked up”, then “too precise”. The American form with s may have put in Scots sneck (“a cut, a notch”) in place of nick. Older Scots also had forms like pernicked and pernicky.
同家族的字
- persnicketythe same word with an extra s; this is the usual American spelling
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
pernicketyadj/pəˈnɪk.ɪ.ti/
- 1
Fussy; paying undue attention to minor details; fastidious.
- ‘You must forgive me,’ he said. ‘I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It’s very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I’m working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.’
- 2
Requiring attention to minor details.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。