cavil
cavils; cavilling; cavilled; caviling; caviled
If your only cavil to your family's trip to Disney World is that you don't like airline food, you're not representing the anti-Mickey side of the argument very well. A cavil is a small or petty objection.
Cavil is not a word that comes up all that often. You can replace it with the more commonly used word quibble and still have the same meaning. If you cavil over a restaurant bill, you argue about the minute, unimportant details of who owes what — like whether your portion of the bill is $10.00 or $10.17.
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raise trivial objections
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an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections
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type of:
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equivocation, evasion
a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth
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equivocation, evasion
Vocabulary lists containing cavil
In this collection of twelve essays, the leader of New England's transcendentalist movement shares his philosophical ideas on different aspects of mid-nineteenth-century life. Read the full text here.
In this three-part poem, Pope outlines the failings and responsibilities of literary critics. Read the full text here.
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