a. [Connected with FINICK v., FINICKING; as finical is the earliest recorded, it may be the source of the other words; in any case ultimate derivation from FINE a. seems probable.] Of persons, their actions and attributes: Over-nice or particular, affectedly fastidious, excessively punctilious or precise, in speech, dress, manners, methods of work, etc. Also of things: Over-scrupulously finished; excessively or affectedly fine or delicate in workmanship.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse (ed. 2), 10 b. She is so finicall in her speach.
1607. R. C[arew], trans. H. Estienne’s World of Wonders, 50. Women gorgeously apparelled, finicall and fine as fippence.
1650. Howell, Ep. Ho-El., I. I. i. Expressions made up of a bombast of words and finical affected complements.
1660. H. More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, To Rdr., 11. More trim and elegant fancies, who are so nice and finical that they would not come near a sore.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 82, 18 Oct., ¶ 6. Your open Sleeves, Pantaloons, and Shoulder-Knot, made a much better Show than the finnikal Dress I am in.
1727. Pope, etc., Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry, 111. The Finical Style … consists of the most curious, affected, mincing metaphors.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), II. ii. 11. Lord G—— seems a little too finical in his dress.
1820. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life, II. v. 119. Oh! he is such a pretty, little, delicate, ladylike, finical gentleman!
1840. Thackeray, Crit. Rev., Wks. 1886, XXIII. 167. It might be painted with a little more strength, and a good deal less finical trifling with the pencil.
1887. Saintsbury, Hist. Elizab. Lit., v. (1890), 189. His version [Chapman’s Homer], with all its faults, outlived the popularity even of Pope, was for more than two centuries the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what the Greek was, and, despite the finical scholarship of the present day, is likely to survive all the attempts made with us.
absol. a. 1845. Hood, Compass, xxii.
| Down went the wind, down went the wave, | |
| Fear quitted the most finical. |
Hence † Finical v., nonce-wd. trans. to dress or ‘get (oneself) up.’ Finically adv., in a finical manner, affectedly, fastidiously. Finicalness, (a) the quality of being finical; (b) a finical thing, a refinement. Finicality, (a) finical quality; (b) something finical.
1594. Nashe, Unfort. Trav., 15. I was ordained Gods scourge from aboue for their daintie finicalitie.
1659. Torriano, Stringáto … finicaly drest up.
1670. J. Covel, Diary (Hakl., 1893), 261–2. We had no such finicallnesse as knives or forkes, onely the weapons that nature gave us, our hands and teeth.
1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count, I. ii. 20. You think yourself a very fine fellow now, and finical yourself up to be thought so.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), V. 206. His [Gribelin’s] works have no more merit than finicalness, and that not in perfection, can give them.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer. (1778), I. IV. 372. Though finically attentive to dress, he is little solicitous about the elegance or disposition of his habitation.
1816. J. Gilchrist, Philosophic Etymology, 217. [He] would arrest the press to alter a comma; yet with all this fingering finicalness, has not left a single well-constructed paragraph in his whole writings!
1819. Sporting Mag., V. 59–60. After sipping, with all the finicallity of spinsterian consequence, her sixth cup of the enlivening liquid.
1826. Blackw. Mag., XIX. 655/2. To cut warm joints fairly and smoothly, neither in slices too thick, nor in such as are finically thin, is all that is required of the carver of meat, whether boiled or roasted.
1884. J. Payn, Lit. Recoll., 256. He … sometimes exhibited a whimsical finicality.
