What is another word for hair-splitting?

Pronunciation: [hˈe͡əsplˈɪtɪŋ] (IPA)

Hair-splitting is a term that is often used to describe nitpicking or being overly critical about minor details. However, there are several synonyms to be used in its place such as pedantic, finicky, captious, or quibbling. Pedantic implies an excessive focus on academic details or the trivial aspects of a subject. Finicky refers to someone who is hard to please, particularly about issues related to cleanliness, taste, or food quality. Captious, on the other hand, suggests that someone is seeing faults where none exist and is inclined to argue or raise objections. Quibbling implies an over-attention to minor differences or trivial, unimportant aspects of a situation, argument, or proposal.

What are the hypernyms for Hair-splitting?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Famous quotes with Hair-splitting

  • There is no room for legal hair-splitting when it comes to the humane treatment of detainees - not in a nation founded on the rule of law and respect for human rights.
    Dick Durbin
  • The profession of religion was not the same thing as godliness, and he was coming to doubt whether the insistence upon minute conformities of outward conduct and the hair-splitting doctrines were not devices of Satan to entangle souls.
    John Buchan
  • It is a bad thing to perform menial duties even for the sake of freedom; to fight with pinpricks, instead of with clubs. I have become tired of hypocrisy, stupidity, gross arbitrariness, and of our bowing and scraping, dodging, and hair-splitting over words. Consequently, the government has given me back my freedom.
    Karl Marx

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