Definition of "flyspeck" [fly•speck]

• A small dark speck or stain made by the excrement of a fly. (noun)
• A minute or insignificant spot. (noun)
• To mark or foul with flyspecks. (verb-transitive)
• Slang To examine closely or in minute detail; scrutinize: "[The company's] performance will be flyspecked for clues as to how well it will do over the calendar year” ( Harry A. Stark). (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Name me one Democratic leader who says we can declare peace, pull down the Levalor blinds, and everything will be peachy -- Kerry doesn't talk that way, the voluble Biden doesn't (who said this weekend he didn't want to "flyspeck" the magnitude of Israel's military response), Hillary certainly doesn't."
• "Back in the glory days of Newt Gingrich, the House enacted a rule that would limit revisions to the Congressional Record to correct mistakes in grammar, typographical errors, and other such "flyspeck" matters."
• "ZIMMERMAN: Midway Island taken at the same time, in the same summer as the -- as the Spanish were defeated, another kind of flyspeck with a good naval base possibility in the Pacific."