meticulously
Americanadverb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of meticulously
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.
Vocabulary lists containing meticulously
The Giver
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Wonder
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Purple Hibiscus
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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.
Cookie, a former art student, has a secret passion: building meticulously detailed dollhouse re-creations of crime scenes.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
I make a lot of phone calls for stories, and meticulously transcribing those interviews has been the bane of my existence since I was in high school.
From Slate • May 24, 2026
Next to the museum, a team of experts continues to work meticulously on his vast archives, preserving the legacy of Turkey's photography master.
From Barron's • May 10, 2026
Strout has meticulously constructed these worlds in linked short stories and novels, set in imaginary small towns such as Crosby, Maine, and Amgash, Ill. With Artie Dam, she has chosen a new protagonist and setting.
From Los Angeles Times • May 5, 2026
To appease Sagarmatha, this year—as every year—the Sherpas had built more than a dozen beautiful, meticulously constructed stone chortens at Base Camp, one for each expedition.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
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.
