Cavil Definition

kăvəl
caviled, caviling, cavilled, cavilling, cavils
verb
caviled, caviling, cavilled, cavilling, cavils
To object when there is little reason to do so; resort to trivial faultfinding; carp; quibble (at or about)
Webster's New World
To argue or find fault over trivial matters; raise petty objections.
American Heritage
To quibble about; point out petty flaws in.
American Heritage

(intransitive) To criticise for petty or frivolous reasons.

Wiktionary
Synonyms:
noun
cavils
A trivial objection; quibble.
Webster's New World

A petty or trivial objection or criticism.

Wiktionary
Synonyms:

Origin of Cavil

  • From Old French caviller (“mock”, “jest”, “rail”), from Latin cavillor (“jeer, mock, satirise, reason captiously”), from cavilla (“jeering”, “raillery”, “scoffing”); cognate with Italian cavillare, Portuguese cavillar, and Spanish cavilar; nominal usage developed within English from the original verbal usage.

    From Wiktionary

  • French caviller from Old French from Latin cavillārī to jeer from cavilla a jeering

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Cavil Sentence Examples

  • Equally ingenious is their cavil, that women should not be baptized if baptism is to be made conformable to circumcision.

  • On the one hand, the general agreement everywhere between the Hebrew accounts and contemporaneous records from Mesopotamia proves beyond cavil that, broadly speaking, the Bible accounts are historically true, and were written by persons who in the main had access to contemporaneous documents.

  • After allowing for this, Angelico should nevertheless be accepted beyond cavil as an exalted typical painter according to his own range of conceptions, consonant with his monastic calling, unsullied purity of life and exceeding devoutness.

  • Certain it is that there is much in his utterances for a less robust democracy than his own to cavil at.'

  • The Final Five Cylons did not know they were Cylons thanks to Cavil blocking their memories and implanting them among the humans.

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Words Starting With

CCACAV

Words Ending With

LILVIL

Unscrambles

cavil

Words Starting With C and Ending With L

Starts With C & Ends With LStarts With CA & Ends With LStarts With C & Ends With IL

Word Length

5 Letter Words5 Letter Words Starting With C5 Letter Words Ending With L