Definition of CAPTIOUSNESS

Choose the Right Synonym for captious

critical, hypercritical, faultfinding, captious, carping, censorious mean inclined to look for and point out faults and defects. critical may also imply an effort to see a thing clearly and truly in order to judge it fairly. a critical essay hypercritical suggests a tendency to judge by unreasonably strict standards. hypercritical disparagement of other people's work faultfinding implies a querulous or exacting temperament. a faultfinding reviewer captious suggests a readiness to detect trivial faults or raise objections on trivial grounds. a captious critic carping implies an ill-natured or perverse picking of flaws. a carping editorial censorious implies a disposition to be severely critical and condemnatory. the censorious tone of the review

Did You Know?

If you suspect that captious is a relative of capture and captivate, you're right. All of those words are related to the Latin verb capere, which means "to take." The direct ancestor of captious is captio, a Latin offspring of capere, which literally means "a taking" but which was also used to mean "a deception" or "a sophistic argument." Arguments labeled "captious" are likely to capture you in a figurative sense; they often entrap through subtly deceptive reasoning or trifling points. A captious individual is one who you might also dub "hypercritical," the sort of carping, censorious critic only too ready to point out minor faults or raise objections on trivial grounds.

Examples of captious in a Sentence

a captious and cranky eater who's never met a vegetable he didn't hate

Recent Examples on the Web Berryman was a captious and self-heating complainer, slow to cool. — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'captious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.