4 definitions
for exacting
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
Exacting \Ex*act"ing\, a.
Oppressive or unreasonably severe in making demands or
requiring the exact fulfillment of obligations; harsh;
severe. "A temper so exacting." --T. Arnold --
Ex*act"ing*ly, adv. -- Ex*act"ing*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
Exact \Ex*act"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Exacted; p. pr. & vb. n.
Exacting.] [From L. exactus, p. p. of exigere; or fr. LL.
exactare: cf. OF. exacter. See Exact, a.]
To demand or require authoritatively or peremptorily, as a
right; to enforce the payment of, or a yielding of; to compel
to yield or to furnish; hence, to wrest, as a fee or reward
when none is due; -- followed by from or of before the one
subjected to exaction; as, to exact tribute, fees, obedience,
etc., from or of some one.
[1913 Webster]
He said into them, Exact no more than that which is
appointed you. --Luke. iii.
13.
[1913 Webster]
Years of servise past
From grateful souls exact reward at last --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
My designs
Exact me in another place. --Massinger.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 :
exacting
adj 1: having complicated nutritional requirements; especially
growing only in special artificial cultures;
"fastidious microorganisms"; "certain highly
specialized xerophytes are extremely exacting in their
requirements" [syn: fastidious] [ant: unfastidious]
2: severe and unremitting in making demands; "an exacting
instructor"; "a stern disciplinarian"; "strict standards"
[syn: stern, strict]
3: requiring precise accuracy; "an exacting job"; "became more
exigent over his pronunciation" [syn: exigent]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :
152 Moby Thesaurus words for "exacting":
Herculean, Spartan, Spartanic, abstruse, accurate, arduous,
arousing, astringent, attentive, austere, authoritarian, brutal,
burdensome, censorious, choicy, choosy, clamant, clamorous, close,
complex, conscientious, correct, critical, crying, cutthroat,
delicate, demanding, detailed, difficile, difficult,
discriminating, discriminative, dour, draining, educible, eductive,
elicitory, eradicative, evocative, exact, exactive, excessive,
exigent, exorbitant, exquisite, extortionary, extortionate,
extortive, extractive, extravagant, fancy, fastidious, fine,
finical, finicking, finicky, formidable, fussy, gouging, grasping,
grievous, grim, grossly overpriced, hairy, hard, hard-earned,
hard-fought, harsh, hypercritical, immoderate, imperative,
importunate, inflationary, inordinate, insistent, instant,
intricate, jawbreaking, knotted, knotty, laborious, loud, mean,
meticulous, minute, narrow, nice, no picnic, not easy, operose,
oppressive, out of bounds, out of sight, outrageous, overpriced,
particular, perfectionistic, persistent, pertinacious, picky,
precise, precisianistic, precisionistic, preposterous, pressing,
priggish, prohibitive, prudish, punctilious, punctual, puristic,
puritanic, refined, religious, rigid, rigorous, rough, rugged,
scrupulous, scrutinizing, selective, sensitive, set with thorns,
severe, skyrocketing, spiny, spiraling, steep, stern, strenuous,
strict, stringent, subtle, taxing, thorny, ticklish, toilsome,
tough, tricky, trying, tyrannical, unconscionable, undue,
unreasonable, unsparing, unwarranted, uphill, uprooting, urgent,
usurious, weighty, wicked