Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The making of unreasonably fine distinctions.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act or practice of making sophistical or over-nice distinctions in reasoning.
- Making sophistical or over-nice distinctions in reasoning; also, made by such reasoning.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Making excessively fine or trivial distinctions in reasoning; overly subtle.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of
considering orarguing aboutfine details , orworrying aboutminutiae .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun making too fine distinctions of little importance
- adjective developed in excessively fine detail
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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This distinction, which might seem at first glance to be religious hairsplitting, is fundamental around the Vatican.
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This distinction, which might seem at first glance to be religious hairsplitting, is fundamental around the Vatican.
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They, who were so clever in hairsplitting argument, seemed incapable of grasping the Roman idea of the State.
Chapter 17 1915
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She recalled the hairsplitting legalisms of the Icelandic sagas.
Operation Luna Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1999
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That kind of hairsplitting scarcely becomes a superpower-slash-world leader in disarmament.
Russ Wellen: Are Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Once Joined at the Hip, Headed for Divorce? Russ Wellen 2010
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That kind of hairsplitting scarcely becomes a superpower-slash-world leader in disarmament.
Russ Wellen: Are Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Once Joined at the Hip, Headed for Divorce? Russ Wellen 2010
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That kind of hairsplitting just proves that the country is already in the toilet.
America On The Couch 2008
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Which seems to capture the situation: If in fact Rove and Libby are indicted, it could turn out to be because the kind of hairsplitting, enigmatic answers that have worked so well as staving off the White House press corps over the years served them very poorly once a resolute federal prosecutor entered the picture.
10/17/2005 2005
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The bill is another example of Bush's lawyerly "hairsplitting" which is aimed at gutting the clearly articulated provisions of the Geneva Conventions so that he can carry out his torture-regime with impunity.
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This kind of hairsplitting irks Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist.
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