Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To find fault unnecessarily; raise trivial objections. See Synonyms at quibble.
- v. To quibble about; detect petty flaws in.
- n. A carping or trivial objection.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See cavel
- n. See cavel.
- To raise captious and frivolous objections; find fault without good reason; carp: frequently followed by at.
- To receive or treat with objections; find fault with.
- n. A captious or frivolous objection; an exception taken for the sake of argument; a carping argument.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive To criticise for petty or frivolous reasons.
- n. A petty or trivial objection or criticism.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To raise captious and frivolous objections; to find fault without good reason.
- v. obsolete To cavil at.
- n. A captious or frivolous objection.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections
- v. raise trivial objections
Etymologies
- From Old French caviller ("mock”, “jest”, “rail"), from Latin cavillor ("jeer, mock, satirise, reason captiously"), from cavilla ("jeering”, “raillery”, “scoffing"); cognate with Italian cavillare, Portuguese cavillar, and Spanish cavilar; nominal usage developed within English from the original verbal usage. (Wiktionary)
- French caviller, from Old French, from Latin cavillārī, to jeer, from cavilla, a jeering. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The association of Brother Cavil's name with the word 'cavil' seems almost irresistible.”
“And if they cavil at it, as MPs have cavilled and continue to cavil at the detection of their felonies, they may yet discover what the whoosh of the guillotine blade sounds like.”
“Forgive the cavil, but I can't help feeling that schools facing the most savage cuts in several generations as a direct result of the actions of banks such as Lloyds would have preferred to retain a music department, say, than the chance to share in the magic of the Lloyds story.”
The Guardian: The London 2012 Olympic torch relay is following a path that inflames | Marina Hyde
“But is it too much to ask its friends for support—this time, for once, without cavil or reservation?”
“Unlike Albany, where the insiders rule without cavil, California voters have imposed a two-thirds vote requirement for the legislature to raise taxes.”
“I have only a cavil with George Amos's response Letters , Sept. 3, which quotes Faulkner's Nobel Prize speech.”
“One can cavil that Mr. Hamner relies too much on instances of big-army conventional warfare to argue this assertion.”
“To those, yes, American democrats who quibble, cavil, and lose themselves in conjecture over the risks to which the judge who allows a criminal to live subjects honest people, we countered with Maïmonides's axiom: "It is more satisfying to acquit thousands of the guilty than to execute one sole innocent man.”
“Though counts may cavil and marquises moan, the Spanish parliament, backed by the Spanish electorate, has now put a stop to this kind of discrimination – a policy powerfully endorsed by the king though succession in the monarchy remains, for the moment, exempt from reform.”
“Thus, all predictions and opinions expressed herein should be taken with that cavil.”
The Guardian: Live blog: The Golden Globes – live! | Hadley Freeman
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cavil’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
caballine, cabas, cable, caboched, cabochon, caboose, cabotage, cabré, cabrie, cabriole, cabriolet, cacaesthesia and 1298 more...
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EN - eloquence in public speaking
Key words from "The Training of a Public Speaker" by Grenville Kleiser (New York and London, 1920)
beget, imago, approbation, orator, peroration, Cicero, eloquence, elocution, rhetoric, premeditate, plead, Isocrates and 264 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
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The Spoken Word
Words relating to Conversation
adage, adamant, brusque, candor, cavil, compelling, didactic, disparage, emphatic, facetious, frank, fulminate and 7 more...
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Reading 2nd Round
fugitive, hearth, elixir, perpetrator, surreal, tavern, stalk, strut, duress, cavil, intriguing, banister and 10 more...
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gre words
convoluted, deride, melancholy, antagonize, antagonize, deference, portentous, prodigious, ruminate, ineffable, turgid, mossy and 58 more...
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aykut gre
mossy, intrusive, mettlesome, soliloquy, mocking, dissembler, prevarication, histrionics, aphorism, distinction, concise, pensive and 61 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cavil.
jaltcoh I've only seen this (and I've seen it often) in lawyers' briefs and judicial opinions, always "It is beyond cavil that..." These words can always be deleted to good effect. Jan 29, 2011
malechi To object in a trivial way or for trivial reasons
"Tutor: ....So, in a word, you stand head and shoulders above the ruck and, what's more, you could hold a chair of philosophy or architecture in a great university. And yet you cavil at your lot!
Orestes: No, I do not cavil. What should I cavil at? You've left me free as the strands torn by the winds form spiders' webs that one sees floating ten feet above the ground. I'm light as gossamer and walk on air."
--Jean Paul Sartre, The Flies Dec 7, 2008
lex "This is very unlike the situation of a merchant who offers goods for sale on a daily basis at a price that changes daily, where it is clear beyond cavil that an offer made at one day's price is not intended to continue to the next day."
- Vaskie v. West American Ins. Co, (383 Pa.Super.76, 556 A.2d 436) Sep 4, 2008
johnmperry nitpick Jun 20, 2008