captiousness


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cap·tious

(kăp′shəs)
adj.
1. Marked by a disposition to find and point out trivial faults: a captious scholar.
2. Intended to entrap or confuse, as in an argument: a captious question.
[Middle English capcious, from Old French captieux, from Latin captiōsus, from captiō, seizure, sophism, from captus, past participle of capere, to seize; see kap- in Indo-European roots.]
cap′tious·ly adv.
cap′tious·ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"Yes-- and I suppose you want to know why," she replied with dry captiousness. "You are aware, are you not, that the General is mortgaged to the Marquis, with all his property?
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that He may save the one by the captiousness of the other, these by those and those by these." (113)
Supersession and continuance: the orthodox church's perspective on supersessionism
(Well-fashionedness, being more superficial, can "be learned chiefly from observation and the carriage of those who are allowed to be exactly well-bred" [[section]143, 107].) For didactic purposes, Locke identifies the four components of incivility: roughness, "contempt or want of due respect discovered either in looks, words, or gesture," censoriousness, captiousness ([section] 143, 107-09).
Locke, Richardson, and Austen: or, how to become a gentleman

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