Stickling

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Raising petty objections or quibbling over minor points in a way that delays progress or agreement
2. Objecting stubbornly to small details or making fussy demands that seem unnecessarily particular
3. Being overly particular about trivial matters or persistently haggling over insignificant issues

Etymology: "Stickling" is a plain compound: "stick" with the diminutive-type suffix "-ling," a combination English has used for centuries to name small or lesser things, as in "duckling" and "gosling." The base "stick" traces back through Old English "sticca" and Proto-Germanic "stikkō" to a root meaning "to pierce" or "to prick," which is also the ancestry of the noun for a length of wood. The suffix does the interesting work here. Its Old English form, "-ling," could mark a young or small creature, and it also picked up a sense of a person of a particular kind, which is why English speakers coined forms like this one to describe someone who fusses over a small matter. Most of the word's meaning comes from the combination of a stick-like thing and the suffix's diminishing sense, rather than from any single dramatic event.

Synonyms: pedant, nitpicker, quibbler