finicky
Americanadjective
adjective
-
excessively particular, as in tastes or standards; fussy
-
full of trivial detail; overelaborate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of finicky
Explanation
You reject any vegetable that isn't yellow. You like basmati rice, but detest jasmine, Arborio, and brown. You dine at one restaurant, and you always order the same meal. You are a finicky eater — that is, you are quite particular about food. Fastidious, fussy, picky, persnickety: these are all synonyms for finicky, and they all suggest someone with extremely exacting tastes and habits, someone almost impossible to please. Finicky can also be used to describe something that demands a great deal of care and attention to detail — a finicky lock might require that you jiggle the key just so. Finicky generally conveys the sense that the person or thing it describes is quirky and pointlessly precise.
Vocabulary lists containing finicky
"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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Black Boy
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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.
As a finicky eater who happens to be queer, Black and disabled, I wouldn’t touch durian, duck tongues or most of the basket items on the Food Network TV show, “Chopped.”
From Salon • Jun. 15, 2026
The “coffee-machine story” was a recounting of the finicky 1970s coin-operated coffee machine in his office that often malfunctioned and dispensed its entire contents from one coin.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 6, 2026
Restaurants have struggled this year with rising costs for ingredients such as beef, scarce labor and more finicky customers.
From MarketWatch • Oct. 18, 2025
It isn't "finicky" like some, can be frozen and revived without trouble, and is unusually good at hosting foreign DNA.
From BBC • Sep. 25, 2025
Judging from that morning, she was pretty finicky about her books.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
