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Definition of Captious
1. Adjective. Tending to find and call attention to faults. "An excessively demanding and faultfinding tutor"
Definition of Captious
1. a. Apt to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please.
Definition of Captious
1. Adjective. (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical. ¹
2. Adjective. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Captious
1. tending to find fault [adj]
Lexicographical Neighbors of Captious
Literary usage of Captious
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Notes and Queries by Martim de Albuquerque (1851)
"HICKSON very justly calls him, would never have used captious, as applied
figuratively to a ... Farmer supposed captious to be a contract ion of capacious! ..."
2. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve (1875)
"WHY THE NATIONAL VANITY OF THE AMERICANS IS MORE RESTLESS AND captious THAN THAT
OF THE ENGLISH. ALL free nations are vain-glorious, but national pride is ..."
3. Synonyms Discriminated: A Complete Catalogue of Synonymous Words in the by Charles John Smith (1871)
"captious (Fr. captieux) is apt to catch at faults. Another meaning has flowed
out of this—difficult to suit, and so peevish. ..."
4. Letters by Algernon Charles Swinburne, Edmund Gosse, Thomas James Wise (1919)
"Whence a reader, neither captious nor malevolent, might very naturally infer and
very allowably assert that the reviewer believes The Agamemnon and The ..."
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