picayune/picayunish

[dsteve54]

picayune/picayunish....I can look it up and all. It is just a word(s) that might make an interesting choice for Word of the Day discussion, and I did not seem to find it in the Good Word archive.

[ no reply needed....I can see it in dictionaries, etymology lists, etc. ]

[dsteve54]

....and it may be a springboard for the word "picky", which may or may not have been discussed; I did not check.

[Perry Lassiter]

Intesting idea. Never associated picky with picayune. Now I wonder if it went the other way from pick, to choose, to picky, over-choose, to picayune?

[Audiendus]

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the first recorded date of picayune as 1804, meaning "coin of small value". Probably from Louisiana French picaillon, "coin worth 5 cents", from Provençal picaio, "money". I wondered if it might have some connection with the prefix pico, "one-trillionth" (i.e. a tiny value), but apparently not.

It is not a word much used in the UK.

[LukeJavan8]

I don't see nor hear picayune used much, but interesting
discussion here.