cavil
1
9.8
- noun
- /ˈkævəl/
:
objeción
- Many of his criticisms were just cavils that did not address the main issue.
- only cavil
Examples
-
Despite the cavil from susceptible teachers of English such as Robert Gorham Davis and, for that matter, Wellek (114-15), Mimesis offers a legitimate and fair reading of the central tradition in the literature of our civilization.
Academic text (1999) -
That's a cavil.
Blog text (27) -
Still, the cavils of the right haven't changed much in nearly 100 years.
Academic text (1992) -
I agree... though with cavils that add sophistication to Maslow.
Blog text (25) -
He had left that cavil unstated to Shayna.
Fiction book (1993) -
That's a cavil.
Blog text (27) -
That minor cavil aside, though, this is a much appreciated 'find' for a user such as I still in the perhaps-dinosaur days of XP and Vista.
Blog text (22) -
The conceptualization of cavil society was largely a response to the emergence of the modern legal-rational state, based upon territorial sovereignty, a professional bureaucracy, and the rule of law.
Academic text (1992) -
Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least, the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences.
Academic text (2007) -
The only cavil might be that Gundlach is far less diversified across fixed-income sectors than, say, Bill Gross, who has a mandate to go virtually anywhere, from government bonds and investment-grade corporate debt to sovereign paper and high-yield.
Blog text (6)
Synonyms
11
6.8
A small complaint about unimportant details used to avoid the main point
1
4.6
Small unkind complaints about unimportant things that do not help
1
3.0
A small disagreement about something unimportant
A small, unimportant objection that distracts from the main point
A way of arguing that focuses on small unimportant differences and confuses the issue
Antonyms
How Petty
Surface Forms
Etymology
Cavil comes from an old Latin word cavilla meaning 'joke' or 'mockery'. So a cavil is a small, petty complaint — like a tiny, mocking objection that ignores the main point.