This word confusion facetious vs fastidious rose from a chat session with a couple of friends as we reminisced about school.
Facetious is usually a flippant, inappropriate humor.
Fastidious can be summed up as picky.
Exploring Later . . .
You may want to explore “Facetious vs Factious vs Fractious“.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Facetious | Fastidious |
|---|---|
 — |
 |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Adjective | Adjective |
| Adjective: Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor
Characterized by levity of attitude and love of joking Not meant to be taken seriously or literally |
Adjective: Very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail
Difficult to please
Excessively scrupulous or sensitive, as in taste, propriety, or neatness [Microbiology] Having complex nutritional requirements |
| Examples: | |
| Adjective: Don’t be facetious. Are you going to listen or just make facetious remarks? She’s always making facetious remarks. He is such a facetious person! I was only being facetious. |
Adjective: He chooses his words with fastidious care. The child seemed fastidious about getting her fingers sticky or dirty. He was a fastidious scholar. She insists on fastidious research. “The club is also becoming far more fastidious about what constitutes a breed standard.” – Janet Burroway “He was a fastidious man who hated to dirty his hands, in particular with food.” – Michael Chabon “Fastidious organisms require growth-supporting chemicals, enrichments, vitamins, or blood, which are not present in chemically defined media, that’s why they grow poorly” (Zarecki). |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adverb: facetiously Noun: facetiousness |
Adverb: fastidiously Noun: fastidiousness |
| History of the Word: | |
| Late 16th century, in the general sense of witty, amusing, from the French facétieux, from facétie, which is from the Latin facetia meaning jest, from facetus meaning witty. | Late Middle English from the Latin fastidiosus, from fastidium meaning loathing. The word originally meant disagreeable, later disgusted.
The current senses date from the 17th century. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
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Resources for Facetious versus Fastidious
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Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: facetious,
The Free Dictionary: facetious, fastidious.
Lexico.com: facetious
Zarecki, R, Oberhardt, M.A., Reshef, L, Gophna, U, and Ruppin, E. “A Novel Nutritional Predictor Links Microbial Fastidiousness with Lowered Ubiquity, Growth Rate, and Cooperativeness.” PLoS Computational Biology, 10(7), e1003726. 17 July 2014. Courtesy of “Fastidious Definition.” Biology Online. Last updated 11 June 2022. Accessed 9 Nov 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003726. <https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/fastidious>. Article.
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