punctilio

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A fine point in exactness of conduct, ceremony or procedure.

   “[…]–but, a-propos, ſaid he—Shakeſpear is full of great things—He forgot a ſmall punctillio of announcing your name—it puts you under a neceſſity of doing it yourſelf.”

   “The country was rigorous in exacting my compliance to my engagements to a punctilio, but equally careless in performing her contracts with me; and why so?”

   “It was only whispered, for something unutterably mournful no less than distressing in this spectacle of a man showing himself to be so entirely the vane of a passion enervated the feminine instinct for punctilios.”

   “[I]t seemed strange to be engaged to so charming a girl and yet go through with it as if it were simply a social duty. If one had n't been in love with her at first, one ought to have been at the end of a week or two. If Ambrose Tester was not (and to me he did n't pretend to be), he carried it off, as I have said, better than I should have expected. He was a gentleman, and he behaved like a gentleman, with the added punctilio, I think, of being sorry for his betrothed.”

   “[I shall] thereafter call him Waggner as per German custom, for I feel entirely friendly now. The minute we get reconciled to a person, how willing we are to throw aside little needless punctilios and pronounce his name right!”

2. (countable, uncountable)Strictness in observance of formalities.

   “Alas! she little conceived that, though without any apparent levity or disregard to the world's censure, yet from an obsequiousness and acquiescence to the will and pleasure of others, into what thoughtless indiscretion and want of due punctilio she might be led; rendering her, in the case of Philimore and Oriana, by favouring them in their secret union, a most dangerous intimate!”

   “This rudeness and official punctilio, however, brought forth a storm of protest from my fellow voyagers.”

   “When you sow your peas, when you sow your beans, when you sow your potatoes, when you sow your carrots, your turnips, your parsnips and other root vegetables, do you do so with punctilio? No, but rapidly you open a trench, a rough and ready line, not quite straight, nor yet quite crooked, […]”