a. rare. [f. L. quisquiliæ f. pl., waste matter, refuse, rubbish, etc.] Of the nature of rubbish or refuse.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), IV. 412. The science is overloaded by the quisquilious matter they rake together. Ibid. (a. 1832), Deontol. (1834), I. 295. Dr. Priestley … expunged what, in the quaint phraseology once in vogue, was called the ‘quisquilious matter.’
1857. Fraser’s Mag., LVI. 460. Besides garden fruit insects and worms, the Jay’s diet is sufficiently quisquilious.
