"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Captious

   
Captious is an adjective meaning marked by an (often ill-natured) inclination to stress faults and raise objections; calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument.

In the divorce court she complained that her husband was constantly captious.
I'm sensitive to captious comments on my blogs.

The adverb is captiously and the noun captiousness.

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