meticulous
/mɪˈtɪkjɪlɪs/ adjective
- adjective Characterized by very precise, conscientious attention to details. “meticulous search”
- adjective (archaic) Timid, fearful, overly cautious.
Synonyms
painstaking fastidious alert attentive careful cautelous cautious canny chary circumspect conservative deliberate discreet guarded heedful heedy hesitant mindful prudent reckful punctilious
Antonyms
sloppy careless slapdash aggressive carefree cursory derelict heedless irregardless irrespective lash lax
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin meticulōsus (“full of fear, timid, fearful, terrible, frightful”), from metus (“fear”) and -culōsus, extracted from perīculōsus (“perilous”). Sense of “characterized by very precise, conscientious attention to details” is a semantic loan from French méticuleux.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [L. meticulosus, fr. metus fear: cf. F. méticuleux.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “meticulous”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details