SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
captious
adjective
Disposed to find petty faults or raise objections.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Finding petty faults
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topCaptious criticizes objection for its own sake; careful scrutiny need not be captious.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See captious in use
A captious reviewer objected to every harmless variation in style.
As the schedule discussion continued, one editor became combative, treating each suggestion as an invitation to argue. Another was captious, repeatedly objecting to tiny formatting choices that did not affect when any work would happen.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license