Captiousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A habit of criticizing or objecting to small or unimportant faults
2. A disposition to frequently point out trivial mistakes or faults in others
3. A character trait marked by constant fault-finding and raising minor objections

Etymology: Captiousness is a plain English formation: the adjective "captious" plus the suffix "-ness", which turns an adjective into a noun meaning the quality or state of being that adjective describes. The suffix descends from Old English "-nes", a word that once stood on its own as a noun for a state or condition, and it has been attached to native and borrowed adjectives alike ever since. The root, "captious", is the more interesting part. It came into English from Latin "captiosus", meaning deceptive or fond of sophistry, built on "captio" (a trap or deception) and ultimately on "capere", "to take" or "to seize". The sense of a trap or catch survives in the adjective's older meaning of quibbling in argument, as if a speaker were trying to catch an opponent out on a technicality rather than engage with the point. Over time that disposition, a readiness to pick holes, became the word's dominant sense, and "captiousness" names the habit itself.

Synonyms: faultfinding, criticalness

Antonyms: tolerance