painstaking
/ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋ/
painstaking means carefully attentive to details; studious; diligent in performing a process or procedure.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, painstaking ranks #2,364 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,880 of 14,322 for Scariest Words, #7,102 of 14,448 for Funniest Words, #7,127 of 14,431 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
painstaking is pronounced /ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋ/.
Why “painstaking” is a great word
Characterized by or requiring diligent care and effort, with meticulous attention to detail. From the phrase 'to take pains' (to exert oneself carefully), with 'pains' (efforts, trouble) and 'taking' (the act of), first recorded as a noun in the mid-1500s and as an adjective by 1530. Unlike 'careful,' which suggests general attentiveness to avoid error, or 'diligent,' which denotes steady persistence, painstaking implies an extraordinary, almost laborious degree of scrupulousness, often at a deliberate pace. It is the watchmaker's loupe held motionless while coaxing a hairspring true; the archivist's gentle, millimeter-by-millimeter unfurling of a brittle parchment; the restorer kneeling for hours to realign a single shard of mosaic—the quiet conviction that true excellence resides in the parts no one will ever see, a labor measured not in hours but in breaths, in blinks, in the quiet accumulation of attention so close it borders on reverence.
Etymology
From pains + taking; see take pains. The /ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋ/ pronunciation which dominates in the United States suggests a reanalysis of the word as pain + staking.
adj
- Carefully attentive to details; studious; diligent in performing a process or procedure.“All these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism.”
noun
- The application of careful and attentive effort.“I esteeme Bocace his Decameron, Rabelais, and the kisses of John the second (if they may be placed under this title) worth the paines-taking to reade them.”
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