Quibbling

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Quibble \Quib"ble\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Quibbled}; p. pr. & vb.
     n. {Quibbling}.]
     1. To evade the point in question by artifice, play upon
        words, caviling, or by raising any insignificant or
        impertinent question or point; to trifle in argument or
        discourse; to equivocate.


        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To pun; to practice punning. --Cudworth.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: To cavil; shuffle; equivocate; trifle.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  quibbling
       adj : quibbling over insignificant details; "caviling pettifoggers
             and quiggling pleaders"-Edmund Burke; "her nagging and
             carping attack"; "thought her editor unnecessarily
             nitpicking"; "a pettifogging lawyer's mind"; "had no
             patience with quibbling critics" [syn: {caviling}, {carping},
              {nitpicking}, {pettifogging}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  75 Moby Thesaurus words for "quibbling":
     adverse criticism, animadversion, aspersion, bad notices,
     bad press, bickering, boggling, captious, captiousness, carping,
     cavil, caviling, censoriousness, chicane, chicanery, choplogic,
     critical, criticism, cynical, dodging, equivocation, equivocatory,
     evasion, evasive, exception, faultfinding, fencing, flak,
     hairsplitting, hedging, hit, home thrust, hostile criticism,
     hypercritical, hypercriticalness, hypercriticism, imputation,
     knock, logic-chopping, nagging, niggle, niggling, nit, nit-picking,
     obloquy, overcritical, overcriticalness, paltering, parrying,
     pestering, pettifoggery, pettifogging, petty, picayune,
     prevarication, priggishness, pussyfooting, quibble, rap,
     reflection, reproachfulness, shifting, shuffling, sidestepping,
     slam, stricture, subterfuge, swipe, taking exception,
     tergiversation, trichoschistic, trichoschistism, trifling, trivial,
     ultracritical