nit-picking

noun

1. a concern with insignificant details, esp with the intention of finding fault

adjective

1. showing such a concern; fussy

Other Word Forms

• nit-picker noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of nit-picking¹

C20: from _nit ¹ + _pick ¹

Example Sentences

Some may see such criticisms of “The Holdovers” as nit-picking, or an attempt to rain on Randolph’s parade.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

There is plenty of the sort of officious nit-picking beloved of sports authorities.

Read more on New York Times

Gaining any new clarity about surging reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, will take time, better data gathering and diagnostic tools and, perhaps most importantly, a hale and hearty dose of nit-picking scientific scrutiny.

Read more on Scientific American

I’m on the Kael side of this divide, and this repurposing, linking Kael with a hack biographer, rubbed me the wrong way, but that’s life, and it’s nit-picking, and it’s a whole other freeway.

Read more on New York Times

In a Wednesday tweet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former Los Angeles Times writer seemed to address nit-picking criticisms of the book with a quote by “The Liars’ Club” author Mary Karr, who wrote 2015’s “The Art of Memoir.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• harsh 
• imperious 
• onerous 
• painstaking 
• precise 
• rigid 
• rigorous 
• strict 
• stringent