Word Meanings - CAPTIOUS - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. Art to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please. A captius and suspicious. Stillingfleet. I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to adbide the test of a captious controversy. Bwike. 2.

Additional info about word: CAPTIOUS

1. Art to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please. A captius and suspicious. Stillingfleet. I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to adbide the test of a captious controversy. Bwike. 2. Fitted to harass, perplex, or insnare; insidious; troublesome. Captious restraints on navigation. Bancroft. Syn. -- Caviling, carping, fault-finding; censorious; hypercritical; peevish, fretful; perverse; troublesome. -- Captious, caviling, Carping. A captious person is one who has a fault-finding habit or manner, or is disposed to catch at faults, errors, etc., with quarrelsome intent; a caviling person is disposed to raise objections on frivolous grounds; carping implies that one is given to ill-natured, persistent, or unreasonable fault-finding, or picking up of the words or actions of others. Caviling is the carping of argument, carping the caviling of ill temper. C. J. Smith.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of CAPTIOUS)

• Peevish
• Fretful
• querulous
• petulant
• testy
• captious
• waspish
• splenetic
• ill-natured
• irascible

Related words: (words related to CAPTIOUS)

• CAPTIOUSNESS
  Captious disposition or manner.
• PEEVISH
  1. Habitually fretful; easily vexed or fretted; hard to please; apt to complain; querulous; petulant. "Her peevish babe." Wordsworth. She is peevish, sullen, froward. Shak. 2. Expressing fretfulness and discontent, or unjustifiable dissatisfaction;
• SPLENETICAL
  Splenetic.
• CAPTIOUSLY
  In a captious manner.
• PEEVISHLY
  In a peevish manner. Shak.
• PEEVISHNESS
  The quality of being peevish; disposition to murmur; sourness of temper. Syn. -- See Petulance.
• WASPISH
  1. Resembling a wasp in form; having a slender waist, like a wasp. 2. Quick to resent a trifling affront; characterized by snappishness; irritable; irascible; petulant; snappish. He was naturally a waspish and hot man. Bp. Hall. Much do I suffer,
• PETULANT
  attacks upon, from a lost dim. of petere to fall upon, to attack: cf. 1. Forward; pert; insolent; wanton. Burton. 2. Capriciously fretful; characterized by ill-natured freakishness; irritable. "Petulant moods." Macaulay. Syn. -- Irritable;
• SPLENETICALLY
  In a splenetical manner.
• QUERULOUS
  1. Given to quarreling; quarrelsome. land. 2. Apt to find fault; habitually complaining; disposed to murmur; as, a querulous man or people. Enmity can hardly be more annoying that querulous, jealous, exacting fondness. Macaulay. 3. Expressing
• SPLENETIC
  Affected with spleen; malicious; spiteful; peevish; fretful. "Splenetic guffaw." G. Eliot. You humor me when I am sick; Why not when I am splenetic Pope. Syn. -- Morese; gloomy; sullen; peevish; fretful.
• PETULANTLY
  In a petulant manner.
• TESTY
  Fretful; peevish; petulant; easily irritated. Must I observe you must I stand and crouch Under your testy humor Shak. I was displeased with myself; I was testy. Latimer. (more info) obstinate, headstrong, F. têtu, fr. OF. teste the head, F. tête.
• CAPTIOUS
  1. Art to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please. A captius and suspicious. Stillingfleet. I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to adbide the test of a captious controversy. Bwike. 2.
• ILL-NATURED
  1. Of habitual bad temper; peevish; fractious; cross; crabbed; surly; as, an ill-natured person. 2. Dictated by, or indicating, ill nature; spiteful. "The ill-natured task refuse." Addison. 3. Intractable; not yielding to culture. "Ill-natured
• IRASCIBLE
  Prone to anger; easily provoked or inflamed to anger; choleric; irritable; as, an irascible man; an irascible temper or mood. -- I*ras"ci*ble*ness, n. -- I*ras"ci*bly, adv.
• FRETFUL
  Disposed to fret; ill-humored; peevish; angry; in a state of vexation; as, a fretful temper. -- Fret"ful-ly, adv. -- Fret"ful-ness, n. Syn. -- Peevish; ill-humored; ill-natured; irritable; waspish; captious; petulant; splenetic; spleeny; passionate;
• ANTISPLENETIC
  Good as a remedy against disease of the spleen. -- n.