meticulous

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin meticulōsus (“full of fear, timid, fearful, terrible, frightful”), from metus (“fear”) and -culōsus, extracted from perīculōsus (“perilous”). Sense of “characterized by very precise, conscientious attention to details” is a semantic loan from French méticuleux.

adj

1. Characterized by very precise, conscientious attention to details.
   meticulous search
   meticulous investigation
   meticulous knowledge
   meticulous report
   The meticulous care with which the operation in Sicily was planned has paid dividends. Our casualties in men, in ships and materiel have been low—in fact, far below our estimate. 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt's Fireside Chat, 28 July 1943
2. (archaic) Timid, fearful, overly cautious.