captious
adjective
apt to notice and make much of trivial faults or defects; faultfinding; difficult to please.
captiousness
-
a word derived from
captious.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hägglund examines writing by C. S. Lewis, Augustine, and Kierkegaard with a generous captiousness, fair but firmly forensic.
From The New Yorker ● May 13, 2019
Close to a fire, although the day is oppressively warm, and wrapped in a flannel dressing-gown, sits an old man,—old, and full of the snarling captiousness that makes some white hairs hideous.
From Molly Bawn by Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
There is much here of the usual captiousness to be found in the criticism of bystanders upon action, mixed with a great deal of false assertion and premature knowledge of the ways of Providence.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Rossiter Johnson
We had not been confidential with each other of late; the old dreariness had come back upon us, embittered with a captiousness and acerbity which extracted all the sweets from our intercourse.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851 by Various
The captiousness of criticism has usually referred to the style of the preceding authors as a standard from which the prevalent style of its contemporaries has erringly diverged.
From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli
