micrology

Etymology

Sense 1 is borrowed directly from Ancient Greek μικρολογία (mikrología, “pettiness, stinginess, triviality”), with the suffix reinterpreted as -logy. Sense 2 is micro- + -logy, effectively the same etymological components.

micrology means the study of trivialities and minutiae, or focusing on the small details rather than the whole picture. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why “micrology” is a great word

MICROLOGY — [Noun] The study of or excessive attention to trivial details and minutiae, or the branch of science concerned with microscopic observation. From Ancient Greek μικρολογία (mikrología, "pettiness, triviality"), from μικρός (mikrós, "small") + -λογία (-logía, "study, discourse"). The second sense is formed from the English combining forms micro- ("small") + -logy ("study of"). First attested in the 1650s. Unlike "pedantry," which imposes rigid, bookish rules, or "microscopy," which names the technical instrument, micrology is the devoted act itself—the meticulous, sometimes consuming discipline of dwelling in the infinitesimal. It is the scholar cross-referencing a comma across seven editions, the biologist tracing the single-celled architecture of a diatom, and the historian annotating a monarch's grocery list while the empire falls—a testament that significance is not a property of scale, but of attention.

noun

The study of trivialities and minutiae, or focusing on the small details rather than the whole picture.
That part of science that deals with microscopic objects, or depends on microscopic observation; microscopy.