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Fine; spruce; smart; precise; dianty. [Obs.] Shak. Picked dogfish. (Zoöl.) See under Dogfish. -- Picked out, ornamented or relieved with lines, or the like, of a different, usually a lighter, color; as, a carriage body dark green, picked out with red.

Uncommonly nice and exact; precise; particular. You are rather point-devise in your accouterments. Shak. Thus he grew up, in logic point-devise, Perfect in grammar, and in rhetoric nice. Longfellow.

Formal; precise; affectedly neat or nice; as, prim regularity; a prim person. Swift.

In a prim or precise manner.

The quality or state of being prim; affected formality or niceness; preciseness; stiffness.

the best proportions of her sex. Sir W. Scott. Documents are authentic and facts are true precisely in proportion to the support which they afford to his theory. Macaulay.

Like a prude; very formal, precise, or reserved; affectedly severe in virtue; as, a prudish woman; prudish manners. A formal lecture, spoke with prudish face. Garrick.

punctilio; very nice or exact in the forms of behavior, etiquette, or mutual intercourse; precise; exact in the smallest particulars. "A punctilious observance of divine laws." Rogers. "Very punctilious copies of any letters. The Nation. Punctilious in the simple and intelligible instances of common life. I. Taylor. --…

Observant of nice points; punctilious; precise. Punctual to tediousness in all that he relates. Bp. Burnet. So much on punctual niceties they stand. C. Pitt.

Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid; -- often used by way of reproach or contempt. Paritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded. Macaulay. He had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil. Hawthorne.

ds an action, on account of considerations of conscience or expedience. We are often over-precise, scrupling to say or do those things which lawfully we may. Fuller. Men scruple at the lawfulness of a set form of divine worship. South.

nderness from the far of doing wrong or ofending; nice regard to exactness and propierty; precision. The first sacrilege is looked on with horror; but when they have made the breach, their scrupulosity soon retires. Dr. H. More. Careful, even to scrupulosity, . . . to keep their Sabbath. South.

Precisely the same; the very same; identical. His servant was healed in the selfsame hour. Matt. viii. 13.

Precisely; exactly; as, we shall start at ten o'clock sharp. [Colloq.] Look sharp, attend; be alert. [Colloq.]

A shooting with great precision and effect; hence, a keen contest of wit or argument.

Fig.: Soft; delicate; tender; smooth; as, silken language. "Silken terms precise." Shak.

Exactly corresponding; resembling in all respects; precisely like.

Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim. They be so smug and smooth. Robynson (More's Utopia). The smug and scanty draperies of his style. De Quincey. A young, smug, handsome holiness has no fellow. Beau & Fl.

sort with their vocations. Bacon. Things sort not to my will. herbert. I can not tell you precisely how they sorted. Sir W. Scott.

a return in specie from them" [i. e., kindness for kindness]. Dryden. In specie (Law), in precise or definite form; specifically; according to the exact terms; of the very thing.