From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Quibble \Quib"ble\, verb (used without an object) [imp. & p. p. {Quibbled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Quibbling}.]
1. To evade the point in question by artifice, play upon words, caviling, or by raising any insignificant or impertinent question or point; to trifle in argument or discourse; to equivocate.
2. To pun; to practice punning. --Cudworth.
Syn: To cavil; shuffle; equivocate; trifle.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: quibbling over insignificant details; "caviling pettifoggers and quiggling pleaders"-Edmund Burke; "her nagging and carping attack"; "thought her editor unnecessarily nitpicking"; "a pettifogging lawyer's mind"; "had no patience with quibbling critics" [syn: {caviling}, {carping}, {nitpicking}, {pettifogging}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
75 Moby Thesaurus words for "quibbling": adverse criticism, animadversion, aspersion, bad notices, bad press, bickering, boggling, captious, captiousness, carping, cavil, caviling, censoriousness, chicane, chicanery, choplogic, critical, criticism, cynical, dodging, equivocation, equivocatory, evasion, evasive, exception, faultfinding, fencing, flak, hairsplitting, hedging, hit, home thrust, hostile criticism, hypercritical, hypercriticalness, hypercriticism, imputation, knock, logic-chopping, nagging, niggle, niggling, nit, nit-picking, obloquy, overcritical, overcriticalness, paltering, parrying, pestering, pettifoggery, pettifogging, petty, picayune, prevarication, priggishness, pussyfooting, quibble, rap, reflection, reproachfulness, shifting, shuffling, sidestepping, slam, stricture, subterfuge, swipe, taking exception, tergiversation, trichoschistic, trichoschistism, trifling, trivial, ultracritical
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