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View synonyms for split hairs

split hairs

  1. To argue about an inconsequential and trivial aspect of an issue: “When you are accused of being forty-five minutes late for an appointment, you are splitting hairs to say that you were really only forty minutes late.”


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Idioms and Phrases

Make trivial distinctions, quibble, as in Let's not split hairs about whose turn it is; I'll close up today and you do it tomorrow . This metaphoric idiom transfers dividing so fine an object as a single hair to other petty divisions. [Second half of 1600s]
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Example Sentences

Multiplicity, change, motion—who is to split hairs about them, who will make fine distinctions?

It is possible to find a thousand faults in the most perfect work if one only hunts long enough and is willing to split hairs.

Starza and Tichnat split hairs while I dozed and thought about Fern.

Just get me back, and we'll split hairs about it when I get around this way again.

Sir Blaise, unwilling to split hairs, took it as balsam, and hurriedly turned the conversation.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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