Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Captious
1.
Apt to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please.
A
captious
and suspicious age. Stillingfleet.
I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to abide the test of a
captious
controversy. Bwike.
2.
Fitted to harass, perplex, or insnare; insidious; troublesome.
Syn. – Caviling, carping, fault-finding; censorious; hypercritical; peevish, fretful; perverse; troublesome.
–
Captious
, caviling
, Carping
. A captious person is one who has a fault-finding habit or manner, or is disposed to catch at faults, errors, etc., with quarrelsome intent; a caviling person is disposed to raise objections on frivolous grounds; carping implies that one is given to ill-natured, persistent, or unreasonable fault-finding, or picking up of the words or actions of others. Caviling
is the carping
of argument, carping
the caviling
of ill temper. C. J. Smith.
Webster 1828 Edition
Captious
CAPTIOUS
,Adj.
1.
Disposed to find fault, or raise objections; apt to cavil, as in popular language, it is said, apt to catch at; as a captious man.2.
Fitted to catch or ensnare; insidious; as a captious question.3.
Proceeding from a caviling disposition; as a captious objection or criticism.Definition 2024
captious
captious
English
Adjective
captious (comparative more captious, superlative most captious)
- (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.
- 1605, William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well:
- I know I loue in vaine, striue against hope: / Yet in this captious, and intemible Siue / I still poure in the waters of my loue / And lacke not to loose still.
- 1784, William Cowper, "A Review of Schools", in Poems, 1859 ed., page 219:
- A captious question, sir, and yours is one, / Deserves an answer similar, or none.
- 1815, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To William Lisle Bowles”, in Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2000 Oxford ed. edition, ISBN 0198187459, page 558:
- Were you aware that in your discourse last Sunday you attributed the captious Problem of the Sadducees to the Pharisees, as a proof of the obscure and sensual doctrines of the latter?
- 1605, William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well:
- Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky
- 1968, Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):
- But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.
- 2009, Anne Karpf, The Guardian, 24 Jan 2009:
- The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.
- 1968, Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):
Translations
that captures misleadingly
|
having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections
|
Synonyms
- (disposed to find fault): faultfinding, nitpicky, carping, critical, hypercritical
- (tending to capture or entrap): tricky, thorny; sophistical