Definizione monolingua

captious

captious (comparative more captious, superlative most captious)

1. (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.
   • 1605, William Shakespeare, Alls Well that Ends Well:

     I know I loue in vaine, striue against hope: / Yet in this captious, and intemible Siue / I still poure in the waters of my loue / And lacke not to loose still.

   • 1784, William Cowper, ""A Review of Schools"", in Poems, 1859 ed., page 219:

     A captious question, sir, and yours is one, / Deserves an answer similar, or none.

   • 1815 March 24, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To William Lisle Bowles”, in Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edition 2000 Oxford ed., ISBN 0198187459, page 558:

     Were you aware that in your discourse last Sunday you attributed the captious Problem of the Sadducees to the Pharisees, as a proof of the obscure and sensual doctrines of the latter?

2. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky
   • 1968, Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):

     But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.

   • 2009, Anne Karpf, The Guardian, 24 Jan 2009:

     The ""Our Bold"" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.

Definizione dizionario captious

capzioso

Altri significati:

(obsolete, literary) Intended to capture or entrap.

Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections.