Word of the Day

: January 2, 2022

captious

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adjective KAP-shuss

What It Means

Captious usually means "tending to find fault and raise objections." Less commonly, it means "calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument."

// Surprisingly, the critic, who is known for being captious, found the movie to be a flawless gem.

// Befuddled by the captious questions, the suspect broke down and confessed to the crime.

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captious in Context

"Enjoyable as the book is, a purist will nonetheless fault its loose construction. Still, readers shouldn't be overly captious about this diverting, light entertainment." — Michael Dirda, The Denver Post, 7 Oct. 2018

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Did You Know?

Captious comes from Latin captio, which refers to a deception or verbal quibble. Arguments labeled captious are likely to "capture" a person; they often entrap through subtly deceptive reasoning or trifling points. A captious individual is one who might also be dubbed "hypercritical," the sort of carping, censorious critic only too ready to point out minor faults and raise objections on trivial grounds.



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Fill in the blanks to complete a word that derives from Latin capere (meaning "to take") and refers to a command or principle intended as a general rule of action: p _ _ ce _ _.

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