Meaning & use
nitpicking
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Meanings
noununcountableinformaldisapproving
The habit of finding and complaining about very small, unimportant faults.
Grammar: No plural: that is just nitpicking.
Patterns
- stop the nitpicking
- a bit of nitpicking
Her constant nitpicking over spelling made the team nervous.
I know this is nitpicking, but the margins are slightly uneven.
He apologized for the nitpicking and approved the final draft.
adjectivebefore a nouninformaldisapproving
Overly concerned with tiny details or faults and critical about them.
Grammar: Comes before the noun: a nitpicking manager.
Patterns
- a nitpicking critic
Their nitpicking manager rejected the report over a missing comma.
Nobody enjoys a nitpicking review of every small mistake.
She hated nitpicking arguments about trivial details.
Common combinations
- petty nitpicking
- The meeting dissolved into petty nitpicking.
- endless nitpicking
- After endless nitpicking, they finally signed the contract.
- nitpicking over details
- The two sides spent hours nitpicking over details.
- a nitpicking critic
- A nitpicking critic found fault with every scene.
- stop the nitpicking
- Please stop the nitpicking and look at the big picture.
Synonyms and how they differ
- quibbling
- Quibbling means arguing about trivial points and is aimed at the argument, while nitpicking focuses on finding small faults.
- fault-finding
- Fault-finding is more general and can cover serious faults, but nitpicking is always about unimportant ones.
- pedantry
- Pedantry is an excessive attention to rules and precise detail, and sounds more formal and intellectual than nitpicking.
- hair-splitting
- Hair-splitting is making very fine distinctions in an argument, whereas nitpicking is complaining about small errors.
Opposites
Word family
Practice
Which sentence uses 'nitpicking' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Nitpicking means critical attention to trivial faults, so a delay caused by arguing over a comma fits. The other sentences treat it as praise or kindness.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “nitpicking”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.