quibble

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (3)  · 
“
One quibble, the phrase Stars and Bars refers to the First National Flag of the Confederacy, not the Battle Flag.

View all »
Definitions (14)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. intransitive verb To evade the truth or importance of an issue by raising trivial distinctions and objections.
  2. intransitive verb To find fault or criticize for petty reasons; cavil.
  3. noun A petty distinction or an irrelevant objection.
2 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • In such cases innocence becomes a semantic quibble, as it is so often in courts of law. —  F ;SF; - vol 101 issue 06 - December 2001
  • Given the nature of the novel, however, the quibble is a minor one, and I can cheerfully say that this is a good, safe couple of hours entertainment. —  F ;SF; - vol 090 issue 05 - May 1996
  • One quibble, the phrase Stars and Bars refers to the First National Flag of the Confederacy, not the Battle Flag. —  Latest Articles
  • The other quibble is just that; there's a lot of pages that have been left in the archives as rough sketches, unfinished or uninked. —  COMIXTALK
  • It's a minor quibble, and each of these things does deserve its own name, but making it a bit more explicit what each of those things is would help newcomers feel a little bit less lost. —  LXer Linux News
More examples »
 

Tags

quibble hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 176 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

quibble:   quibbling
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Probably diminutive of obsolete quib, equivocation, perhaps from Latin quibus, dative and ablative pl. of quī, who, what (from its frequent use in legal documents); see kwo- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Freq. of quip; cf. quib.
  2. from quibble, v.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈkwɪbl/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a month.

Recently looked up

auguries · accrue · bantams · modish · champions

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

eu oi oìa u ou e u oìa · the octopi are dry · Kansas City · spell it rite · put it in your pocket