Literary notes about captious (AI summary)
In literary works, "captious" is employed as an adjective to characterize a disposition marked by petty criticism, nitpicking, or a quarrelsome attitude. Writers use the term to depict characters whose remarking—whether in tone or behavior—is intended to find fault or to object over trivial details, as when a remark is delivered in a captious tone [1] or when a character’s behavior is described as captious and quibbling [2]. It can also convey a broader critical spirit in debates and discourses, capturing the tendency to challenge conventional ideas with unnecessarily sharp criticism [3], [4]. This nuanced application, ranging from interpersonal interactions to criticisms of social and political constructs, demonstrates the term’s versatility in conveying both personal irritability and a generic disposition toward fault-finding [5], [6].
- So she began to fall foul of Lettice's new bonnet, and to say, in a captious tone, "You got money enough to buy yourself a new bonnet, I see."
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850 by Various - A solemn silence; Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - The whole criticism of the “right wing,” from captious objections to actual denials, proves this indisputably.
— from Naturalism and Religion by Rudolf Otto - Thus some men are of that captious, froward humour, that a man had better be wholly strangers to them, than never so intimate friends.
— from In Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus - Is he not captious, dogmatical, petulant in delivering his sentiments, according as he has been inconsistent, rash, and fanciful in adopting them?
— from The Spirit of the Age; Or, Contemporary Portraits by William Hazlitt - Among the grammarians and critics were Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, and Zoilus, proverbial as a captious critic.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide by Various
