taking or showing extreme care about minute details; precise; thorough: a meticulous craftsman; meticulous personal appearance.
2.
finicky; fussy: meticulous adherence to technicalities.
Origin: 1525–35; < Latinmetīculōsus full of fear, fearful, equivalent to metī- for metū- (stem of metus fear) + -culōsus, extracted from perīculōsusperilous
1530s, from L. meticulosus "fearful, timid," lit. "full of fear," from metus "fear," of unknown origin. Sense of "fussy about details" is first recorded in English 1827, from Fr. méticuleux. Related: Meticulousness.