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Difficult to please; delicate to fault; suited with difficulty; squeamish; as, a fastidious mind or ear; a fastidious appetite. Proud youth ! fastidious of the lower world. Young.

Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting. O gentle lady, do not put me to 't, For I am nothing, if not critical. Shak.

To render dainty, delicate, or fastidious. "Daintified emotion." Sat. rev.

In a dainty manner; nicely; scrupulously; fastidiously; deliciously; prettily.

The quality of being dainty; nicety; niceness; elegance; delicacy; deliciousness; fastidiousness; squeamishness. The daintiness and niceness of our captains Hakluyt. More notorious for the daintiness of the provision . . . than for the massiveness of the dish. Hakewill. The duke exeeded in the daintiness of his leg and…

Requirinig daintles. Hence; Overnice; hard to please; fastidious; sqrupulous; ceremonious. Thew were a fine and Dainty people. Bacon. And let us not be dainty of leave taking, But shift away. Shak. To make dainty, to assume or affect delicacy or fastidiousness. [Obs.] Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all Will now den…

ice propriety of manners or conduct; susceptibility or tenderness of feeling; refinement; fastidiousness; and hence, in an exaggerated sense, effeminacy; as, great delicacy of behavior; delicacy in doing a kindness; delicacy of character that unfits for earnest action. You know your mother's delicacy in this point. Cow…

Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.

esteem; to undervalue. Addison. Which . . . some over-severe phoilosophers may look upon fastidiously, or undervalue and depreciate. Cudworth. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself. Burke.

One of a coterie who exclude others; one who from real of affected fastidiousness limits his acquaintance to a select few.

licate perception or close and accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; nice; fastidious; as, exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment. His books of Oriental languages, wherein he was exquisite. Fuller.

Fastidiousness; squeamishness. [Obs.] Swift.

Affectedly fine; overnice; unduly particular; fastidious. "Finical taste." Wordsworth. The gross style consists in giving no detail, the finical in giving nothing else. Hazlitt.

Cautiously; timidly; fastidiously; daintily. What is't that you took up so gingerly Shak.

Easily disgusted; squeamish; sentimentally fastidious. J. H. Newman.

Overscrupulous or exacting; hard to please or satisfy; fastidious in small matters. Curious not knowing, not exact but nice. Pope. And to taste Think not I shall be nice. Milton.

Excessively nice; fastidious. Bp. Hall. -- O"ver*nice"ly, adv. -- O"ver*nice"ness, n.

; circumstantial; precise; as, a full and particular account of an accident; hence, nice; fastidious; as, a man particular in his dress.

Particular; fastidious; overnice. [Obs.] Lest that precious folk be with me wroth. Chaucer. Precious metals, the uncommon and highly valuable metals, esp. gold and silver. -- Precious stones, gems; jewels.

Fastidious; squeamish; delicate; easily disturbed; unsettled; ticklish. " A queasy question." Shak. Some seek, when queasy conscience has its qualms. Cowper.