meticulous

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Giving very careful and precise attention to every detail.

   She kept meticulous records of every penny the charity spent.

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Simplified etymology

Meticulous ultimately comes from Latin metus, meaning “fear,” and at first meant “fearful” or “timid.” It later shifted to “overly careful about detail” and, by the early 19th century, lost that negative implication to acquire its modern sense of showing great attention to detail.

Learned borrowing from Latin meticulōsus (“full of fear, timid, fearful, terrible, frightful”), from metus (“fear”) and -culōsus, extracted from perīculōsus (“perilous”). Sense of “characterized by very precise, conscientious attention to details” is a semantic loan from French méticuleux.

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