hairsplitter means A stickler person who makes extremely, possibly excessively, fine distinctions (who would separate something as fine as a hair into two pieces and distinguish them). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “hairsplitter” is a great word
HAIRSPLITTER — [Noun] One who makes excessively fine or trivial distinctions, especially in argument. From hair (referring to something extremely fine or minute) + splitter (one who splits). Unlike a pedant, who brandishes bookish rules with slavish ostentation, or a sophist, who wields clever fallacies for victory, a hairsplitter earnestly cleaves the indivisible. It is the voice in a committee meeting debating whether a recess begins at 3:00 p.m. or 3:01, the scholar insisting a comma alters an entire doctrine, or the friend parsing an anecdote to correct the time by mere minutes—a devotion to precision so minute it becomes a form of oblivion, where the map's legend swells into a territory vast enough to be lost in.
Etymology
From hair + splitter.
noun
- A stickler person who makes extremely, possibly excessively, fine distinctions (who would separate something as fine as a hair into two pieces and distinguish them).