From finick (“to work in a fastidious manner, wasting time over unnecesasary details”) +‎ -y. Compare finicking, finical, and dated finikin. Perhaps suggested by obsolete Dutch fijnkens (“accurately, neatly, prettily”) (modern Dutch fijntjes). Compare also Sicilian finicchiu.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɪnɪki/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

finicky (comparative finickier or more finicky, superlative finickiest or most finicky)

1. (informal, of a person) Fastidious and fussy; difficult to please; exacting, especially about details.

   Synonyms: fastidious, fussy; see also Thesaurus:fastidious

   My editor is very finicky about punctuation. Every dot and comma has to be just right.

   She has a finicky baby that's hard to feed.

2. (informal) Demanding; requiring above-normal care.

   The lawnmower is a bit finicky in cold weather.

   • 2009 July 13, Evan Kleiman, “Pie-a-Day #20 & #21: Cherry Pie and Sour Cream Ice Cream Pie”, in KCRW‎^[1]:

     Instead of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cream Cheese Pie Crust from her addictingly finicky The Pie and Pastry Bible, I decided to make her Sour Cream Crust.

• The forms finickier and finickiest also exist, but are quite rare, and perhaps nonstandard. The forms more finicky and most finicky are much more common, and certainly standard.

• “finicky”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.