Wiktionary
n. 1 The painstaking process of removing nits (lice eggs) from someone's hair. 2 (context figuratively by extension English) A process of finding or pointing out tiny details or errors, particularly if the pointed-out details seem insignificant or irrelevant to all but the finder.
WordNet
adj. quibbling over insignificant details; "caviling pettifoggers and quiggling pleaders"-Edmund Burke; "her nagging and carping attack"; "thought her editor unnecessarily nitpicking"; "a pettifogging lawyer's mind"; "had no patience with quibbling critics" [syn: caviling, carping, pettifogging, quibbling]
Wikipedia
Nitpicking is the act of removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from the host's hair. As the nits are cemented to individual hairs, they cannot be removed with most lice combs and, before modern chemical methods were invented, the only options were to shave all the host's hair or to pick them free one by one.
This is a slow and laborious process, as the root of each individual hair must be examined for infestation. It was largely abandoned as modern chemical methods became available; however, as lice populations can and do develop resistance, manual nitpicking is still often necessary.
Nitpicking may refer to:
- Nitpicking, a medical treatment for removing lice
- Nitpicking (pastime), an activity that involves the finding of errors, as metaphor of the above
- A form of hypercriticism, thus pathologic or pejorative term for finding errors
- An enemy in the NES game Ice Climber
Usage examples of "nitpicking".
The result of all this misguided hysteria, say the Version A advocates, the Deregulators, is the mushrooming of giant bureaucracies whose sole effect is to hog tie business with red tape and maddening, nitpicking regulations.
I think there might be real promise in game designs that offer less of a sense of nitpicking mastery and control, and more of a sense of sleaziness and bluesiness and smokiness.