Nitpicking

For other uses, see Nitpicking (disambiguation).

Photograph by Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914); Famille napolitaine — a Neapolitan mother searching for lice in her son's hair.

Nitpicking is the act of removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from the host's hair. As the nits are cemented to individual hairs, they cannot be removed with most lice combs and, before modern chemical methods were invented, the only options were to shave all the host's hair or to pick them free one by one.

This is a slow and laborious process, as the root of each individual hair must be examined for infestation. It was largely abandoned as modern chemical methods became available; however, as lice populations can and do develop resistance, manual nitpicking is still often necessary.

As nitpicking inherently requires fastidious, meticulous attention to detail, the term has become appropriated to describe the practice of meticulously searching for minor, even trivial errors in detail (often referred to as "nits" as well), and then criticising them (see nitpicking (pastime)).

See also

• Self care
• Treatment of human head lice

This medical treatment-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Hygiene Medical treatment stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая? British American Paul Chato Look at other dictionaries: nitpicking — UK [ˈnɪtˌpɪkɪŋ] US noun [uncountable] annoying criticisms about small unimportant details Thesaurus: criticism and disapprovalsynonym …   Useful english dictionary nitpicking — [[t]nɪ̱tpɪkɪŋ[/t]] also nit picking N UNCOUNT (disapproval) If you refer to someone s opinion as nitpicking, you disapprove of the fact that it concentrates on small and unimportant details, especially to try and find fault with something. A lot… …   English dictionary nitpicking — noun a) The painstaking process of removing nits lice eggs from someones hair. Of all lifes pleasures, I like nitpicking the best. in b) By extension, any process of finding or pointing out tiny details or errors, particularly if the pointed out… …   Wiktionary nitpicking — noun (U) informal the annoying habit of arguing about unimportant details, especially in someone s work nitpicking adjective nitpicker noun (C) …   Longman dictionary of contemporary English Nitpicking (disambiguation) — Nitpicking may refer to: Nitpicking, a form of hypercriticism. Nitpicking, a medical treatment for removing lice. Nitpicking (pastime) is an activity that involves the finding of errors. A Nitpicker is an enemy in the NES game Ice Climber,… …   Wikipedia Nitpicking (pastime) — This article is about the figurative use of the term. For other uses, see Nitpicking (disambiguation). Nitpicking is the pastime of pointing out minor flaws or mistakes. The term is often used in a negative light. The term comes from the intense… …   Wikipedia nitpicking — nit·pick·ing (nĭtʹpĭk ĭng) n. Minute, trivial, unnecessary, and unjustified criticism or faultfinding. * * * …   Universalium nitpicking — nɪtpɪk v. pay obsessive attention to petty flaws or details …   English contemporary dictionary nitpicking — adjective, informal See pedantic …   Thesaurus of popular words nitpicking — UK [ˈnɪtˌpɪkɪŋ] / US noun [uncountable] annoying criticisms about small unimportant details …   English dictionary 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”