1
as in complaining
to make often peevish criticisms or objections about matters that are minor, unimportant, or irrelevant
he spent the entire evening quibbling about the historical inaccuracies in the television series on World War II
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in bickering
to express different opinions about something often angrily
don't quibble over who gets to sit in front
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in nitpicking
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
as in ambiguity
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of quibbling
Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 25 Aug. 2025
Uriel Kon
september 2, Literary Hub, 2 Sep. 2025
Verb
More support tickets, more quibbling, more negotiating.
—Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 25 Aug. 2025
Noun
When the murder of 100,000 people, many of them women and children, is mentioned or denounced, or when someone dares to use terms such as genocide, ethnocide, ethnic cleansing or similar, most people choose to take issue with the characterization, quibbling over semantics.
—Uriel Kon
september 2, Literary Hub, 2 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for quibbling
Verb
-
Nah — not very long later, Tony is referencing his Bond obsession, complaining about the generic name of the secret drone-control computer program everyone is battling for here.—
Chris Willman,
Variety,
4 Sep. 2025
-
But everybody was complaining and asking for a hot one.—
Andy Wang,
Forbes.com,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Coaches are also bickering about money, a topic that would have felt out of place 10 years ago.—
Eben Novy-Williams,
Sportico.com,
5 Sep. 2025
-
The casting here is perfection itself, with Cumberbatch and Colman bickering back and forth with all the drawing-room style of a new age Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall, or maybe the Burton and Taylor of The Taming of the Shrew with a dab of Virginia Woolf.—
Pete Hammond,
Deadline,
25 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
In reality, for decades Netanyahu has upheld Israel's policy of ambiguity.—
MSNBC Newsweek,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Sep. 2025
-
Human creativity thrives in ambiguity and adaptive thinking.—
Sarat Chakravarthi,
Forbes.com,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
That might seem like nitpicking, except this is a franchise that has had the luxury of starting-caliber linemen as reserves.—
Zach Berman,
New York Times,
17 Aug. 2025
-
Still, with star power and depth at all three levels of the defense, pointing out weaknesses is an act of nitpicking at this point.—
Bennett Durando,
Denver Post,
5 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
At the conclusion of the state's case Wednesday, the defense moved to have the case dismissed, arguing the state had failed to prove its case.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
5 Sep. 2025
-
However, a Minnesota court struck down the binary trigger ban, arguing that the legislature violated the state constitution’s single-subject clause by burying the ban inside a sprawling spending bill.—
Mia Cathell,
The Washington Examiner,
4 Sep. 2025
Adjective
-
This planet is electric, unpredictable and genius with its approach, but its transits are anything but subtle.—
Valerie Mesa,
PEOPLE,
6 Sep. 2025
-
Even subtle light or noise can disrupt sleep cycles, preventing you from reaching the deeper, most restorative stages of sleep necessary for physical and mental recovery.—
Bryan Robinson,
Forbes.com,
6 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Many technological challenges abound in the murkiness of natural language chatting.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
29 Aug. 2025
-
All of this speaks to overall murkiness around metrics in the fast-growing industry and the possibility that they might be manipulated.—
Caitlin Huston,
HollywoodReporter,
14 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
This was the mid 1980s and tandem skydiving hadn’t been popularized yet, so his father, Roger, adjusted accordingly by stuffing carpet padding into the leg pads to stop him from fussing.—
Angelina Liu,
People.com,
2 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Quibbling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/quibbling. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.
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