captious

How to use captious in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for captious.

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Editorial note

No need to be captious, snarky, or just plain obnoxious.

Examples6

Definitions1

Parts of speech1

Quick take

tending to find and call attention to faults; "a captious pedant"; "an excessively demanding and faultfinding tutor"

Meaning at a glance

The clearest senses and uses of captious gathered in one view.

adjective

tending to find and call attention to faults; "a captious pedant"; "an excessively demanding and faultfinding tutor"

Definitions

Core meanings and parts of speech for captious.

adjective

tending to find and call attention to faults; "a captious pedant"; "an excessively demanding and faultfinding tutor"

Example sentences

No need to be captious, snarky, or just plain obnoxious.

I would say it's highly unprofessional to name and shame in a workplace - regardless of how captious That Guy is.

Putting a hat on someone just passes the problem off to them - "It's not my poor communication that's the problem, he's captious".

I quoted the article in an attempt to pinpoint a key detail which I felt was at the heart of the issue: that what people consider petty or captious is far too subjective.

They have narrowed the definition of "captious" to target individual issues, which in any normal context would otherwise signal that the person in question is lacking in understanding.

The problem is that because we don't have such an exam in our field, we have to take a random and often unexpected version of it, under conditions of secrecy, with no feed back, evaluated by people who may not be qualified and who can be captious and arbitrary in their assessments.