The Collaborative International Dictionary
Precisian \Pre*ci"sian\, n.
One who limits, or restrains. [Obs.]
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An overprecise person; one rigidly or ceremoniously exact in the observance of rules; a formalist; -- formerly applied to the English Puritans.
The most dissolute cavaliers stood aghast at the dissoluteness of the emancipated precisian.
--Macaulay.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"one devoted to precision," 1570s, from precise + -ian on model of Christian, etc.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A religious purist; a Puritan. 2 Someone who strictly observes the rules; a pedant or stickler.
Usage examples of "precisian".
Tibbets, and the mistress of the house was a precisian in punctuality.
It will be hours of argument with that rule-bound precisian Androctus, hours of searching for precedent in the Solamnic Measure of Knighthood.
There was obviously nothing wrong with her, but I saw at a glance that she was a precisian and would be a stickler about rules.
I am something of a precisian myself, but upon such a consideration, and in Paris, I should not hesitate an instant.
Puritans and precisians, and the cause of the people espoused in terms, which, while most creditable to the monarch, are not altogether inapplicable to other times besides those in which they were delivered.
The worst that can be laid to his charge is that he had a great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in themselves, but condemned by the rigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose opinion he had a great respect.
In sense and vigour the Fourth Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt.