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methodical

US/mɪˈθɑdɪkəl/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,544 of 15,258neutral

Methodical means doing things in a careful, orderly way. One step at a time, in the right order, nothing skipped.

It is a compliment about process rather than speed, and it often carries the implication that the person is slow but will not miss anything. A methodical search, a methodical approach, a methodical worker. Police and scientists attract the word, and so do people who label their tools. The noun is method, and being methodical is different from being systematic only in flavour, since systematic sounds a shade more institutional.

Definitions of methodical

  1. 1adjectivemethodicalDone or doing things in an orderly, step-by-step way.C1

    “He made a methodical search of every drawer.”

    synonyms: systematic, orderly

Where it comes from

  1. Ancient Greek

    μεθοδικός — going to work by rule, systematic, crafty

  2. English, today

    methodical

From Ancient Greek μεθοδικός (“going to work by rule, systematic, crafty”) al.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire

First appears in chapter 12 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

methodical in the wild

  • Samhita literally means "put together, joined, union", a "collection", and "a methodical, rule-based combination of text or verses".

    Samhita

  • Indigenous Australian peoples traditionally classified food sources in a methodical way.

    Indigenous Australian food groups

  • Bobo is known for his pro-style type offensive schemes which cater to the ability to control clock and create long methodical drives.

    Mike Bobo

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.