meticulously

American

[muh-tik-yuh-luhs-lee] / məˈtɪk yə ləs li /

adverb

in a way that shows extreme care about minute details; in a precise and thorough way, sometimes to an excessive degree.

He'd had collections of various kinds as a kid, each of them meticulously sorted and, yes, even inventoried.

Other Word Forms

unmeticulously adverb

Etymology

Origin of meticulously

meticulous ( def. ) + -ly

Explanation

If you clean your house meticulously, you take plenty of time and scour every single nook and cranny, maybe even behind the oven and under the doormat. Meticulous means extremely careful and thorough, so if you do something meticulously, you are painstaking about doing it perfectly. Someone who would never leave her house with an un-ironed t-shirt or a thread hanging loose is someone who dresses meticulously. If your town historian documents every event, from births to remodeled living rooms, then she does her job meticulously, maybe a little too meticulously.

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When Lily, no fool, becomes aware of this emotional entanglement, the meticulously planned heist threatens to collapse.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026

Some because they’re in the process of building their AI carefully and meticulously, but others because they don’t know what they’re doing with AI.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 10, 2026

"His moody, meticulously composed silver gelatin portraits shaped how audiences saw stars like Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Dev Anand, Meena Kumari and Dilip Kumar," the curatorial note says.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2026

In her tidy Alhambra home studio, she meticulously assembles out-of-this-world tableaux in saturated, punchy hues.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 2026

He combs his flaxen strands meticulously from the lower left side of his head to his right temple, then swirls them round and round on his bald crown, securing them with a greasy pomade.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023