hairsplitting

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: hair=split=ting

CIDE DICTIONARY

hairsplitting, a. 

 Making excessively fine or trivial distinctions in reasoning; overly subtle.  [1913 Webster]
"The ancient hairsplitting technicalities of special pleading."  [1913 Webster]

THESAURUS

hairsplitting

adverse criticism, animadversion, aspersion, bad notices, bad press, bickering, boggling, captious, captiousness, carping, cavil, caviling, censoriousness, chicane, chicanery, choplogic, contradistinction, critical, criticism, cynical, delicate, demarcation, differentiation, distinction, distinctiveness, distinguishment, division, dodging, equivocation, equivocatory, evasion, evasive, exception, faultfinding, fencing, finespun, flak, hairline, hedging, hit, home thrust, hostile criticism, hypercritical, hypercriticalness, hypercriticism, hypersensitive, hypersensitivity, imputation, knock, logic-chopping, microscopic distinction, morbid sensibility, morbidly sensitive, nagging, nice, nice distinction, niggle, niggling, nit, nit-picking, nuance, obloquy, overconscientious, overconscientiousness, overcritical, overcriticalness, overfastidious, overfastidiousness, overmeticulous, overmeticulousness, overnice, overniceness, overnicety, overparticular, overparticularity, overprecise, overrefined, overrefinement, overscrupulous, overscrupulousness, oversensitive, oversensitivity, oversqueamish, oversqueamishness, paltering, parrying, pestering, pettifoggery, pettifogging, petty, picayune, prevarication, priggishness, pussyfooting, quibble, quibbling, rap, refined, reflection, reproachfulness, segregation, separation, shade of difference, shifting, shuffling, sidestepping, slam, stricture, subterfuge, subtle, subtle distinction, swipe, taking exception, tergiversation, trichoschistic, trichoschistism, trifling, trivial, ultracritical

ROGET THESAURUS

hairsplitting

& Sophistry

N intuition, instinct, association, hunch, gut feeling, presentiment, premonition, rule of thumb, superstition, astrology, faith (supposition), sophistry, paralogy, perversion, casuistry, jesuitry, equivocation, evasion, chicane, chicanery, quiddet, quiddity, mystification, special pleading, speciousness, nonsense, word sense, tongue sense, false reasoning, vicious reasoning, circular reasoning, petitio principii, ignoratio elenchi, post hoc ergo propter hoc, non sequitur, ignotum per ignotius, misjudgment, false teaching, sophism, solecism, paralogism, quibble, quirk, elenchus, elench, fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet, inconsistency, antilogy, a delusion, a mockery, and a snare, claptrap, cant, mere words, lame and impotent conclusion, meshes of sophistry, cobwebs of sophistry, flaw in an argument, weak point, bad case, overrefinement, hairsplitting, intuitive, instinctive, impulsive, independent of reason, anterior to reason, gratuitous, hazarded, unconnected, unreasonable, illogical, false, unsound, invalid, unwarranted, not following, inconsequent, inconsequential, inconsistent, absonous, absonant, unscientific, untenable, inconclusive, incorrect, fallacious, fallible, groundless, unproved, non sequitur, it does not follow, deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical, illusive, illusory, specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum, evasive, irrelevant, weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague, irrational, nonsensical, foolish, frivolous, pettifogging, quibbling, finespun, overrefined, at the end of one's tether, au bout de son latin, intuitively, by intuition, illogically, non constat, that goes for nothing.