persnickety

The word 'persnickety' is a chiefly North American variant of the earlier Scottish term 'pernickety', which emerged in the early 19th century. Its exact origins are unknown, but it is considered a fanciful, possibly humorous coinage, perhaps influenced by words like 'particular' or 'finicky'. The alteration from 'per-' to 'per-sn-' adds an extra, almost onomatopoeic layer of fussiness, mimicking a sniffy or disdainful attitude. Over time, this playful formation solidified into a standard adjective describing someone overly concerned with petty details or fastidious to a fault.

This word is a lexicalized whole. It is an alteration of the Scottish word 'pernickety', whose own origins are obscure but likely fanciful or imitative in formation.