Nitpicking, a term first attested in 1956, is the action of giving too much attention to unimportant detail. A person who nitpicks is termed as a nitpicker.
The terminology originates from the common act of manually removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from another person's hair.
As nitpicking inherently requires fastidious attention to detail, the term has become appropriated to describe the practice of meticulously searching for minor, even trivial errors in detail.
Nitpicking has been used to describe dishonest insurersJean-Marc Bourgeon, Pierre Picard. Fraudulent Claims and Nitpicky Insurers. cahier de recherche 2012-06. 2012 and bullying employers, or even bullying family members.Management Bullies: The Effect on Employees. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly. 2013, Volume 4, Number 4.
References