Meaning & use
nitpicker
Last updated
A person who focuses excessively on small, trivial faults or details, often to the point of being critical or annoying.
See it in a sentence
The editor was a notorious nitpicker who flagged every stray comma in the manuscript.
Don't be such a nitpicker; the report is accurate even if the formatting is slightly off.
A note on using this word
Comes from "nitpicking," literally picking lice eggs (nits) out of hair, a tediously precise task turned into a metaphor for excessive fussiness.
Words with a similar meaning
fault-finderperfectionist
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