captious

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English

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WOTD – 27 July 2011

Etymology

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From Middle English capcious, from Middle French captieux, or its source, Latin captiōsus, from captiō.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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captious (comparative more captious, superlative most captious)

  1. (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.
    Synonyms: tricky, thorny, sophistical
    • 1605, William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well, act I, scene i, page 234:
      […] I know I loue in vaine, ſtriue againſt hope : / Yet in this captious, and intemible Siue / I ſtill poure in the waters of my loue / And lacke not to looſe ſtill […]
    • 1786, William Cowper, “Tirocinium: Or, A Review of Schools”, in Poems‎[1], 2nd edition, volume II, London: J. Johnson, page 338:
      A captious queſtion, Sir, and your’s is one, / Deſerves an anſwer ſimilar, or none.
    • 1815 March 24, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To William Lisle Bowles”, in Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oxford, published 2000, →ISBN, page 558:
      Were you aware that in your discourse last Sunday you attributed the captious Problem of the Sadducees to the Pharisees, as a proof of the obscure and sensual doctrines of the latter?
  2. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky.
    Synonyms: carping, critical, faultfinding, hypercritical, nitpicky
    • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 23:
      ...not an irritable word had escaped him; and as every captious conclusion and petulant observation had been in days past always attributed, very justly, by Isabella either to the dyspepsia, brought on by his grief for Margarita, or the fever he sustained from the climate,...
    • 1968, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Sidney Monas, Crime and Punishment, published 1866:
      But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.
    • 2009 January 24, Anne Karpf, The Guardian:
      The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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