Exacting

//ɪɡˈzæktɪŋ// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of exact form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Making great demands; difficult to satisfy.

    "His exacting taste required no small degree of outward perfection."

  2. 2
    Of an action, task, etc., requiring precise accuracy, great care, effort, or attention.

    "Wolf's work, which, though not very exacting, had to be done single-handed, kept him to his post."

  3. 3
    Of a person or organization, characterized by exaction.

    ""He is a hard, exacting, money-loving man," was my remark."

Adjective
  1. 1
    requiring precise accuracy wordnet
  2. 2
    severe and unremitting in making demands wordnet
  3. 3
    having complicated nutritional requirements; especially growing only in special artificial cultures wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
demandingarduousfastidiousimportunatestrictunreasonable

Example

More examples

"Printing firms around the world are generally willing to pay perhaps a 20-percent premium to buy a printing press from Germany, because the German presses are very solidly built and are machined to exacting tolerances."

Etymology

From exact + -ing.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.