Captiousness Definition & Meaning

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

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 So much of the new sobriety flex is anathema to the captious alcoholics of 12-step groups. — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 19 Apr. 2022 That a right-wing party traditionally captious about American patriotism did not react heatedly to evidence of Russian interference in US elections is bizarre. — Darryl Pinckney, The New York Review of Books, 5 Nov. 2020 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.