Hairsplitting Synonyms

hârsplĭtĭng
Developed in excessively fine detail
(Adjective)
Synonyms:
  1. unimportant
  2. minute
  3. finespun
  4. subtle
  5. overparticular
  6. overfastidious
  7. overmeticulous
Making too fine distinctions of little importance
(Noun)
Synonyms:
  1. word-splitting
  2. overfastidiousness
  3. overscrupulousness

Hairsplitting Sentence Examples

  • Hairsplitting, even when mischievous in intent, leads to distinctions of value.

  • In every branch of human effort the mania for hairsplitting and classification is harmful and even impossible, as in the attempt to distinguish between practice and science!

  • But nominalism was powerless to inspire theology with new life; on the contrary, its intervention only increased the inextricable tangle of the hairsplitting questions with which theology busied itself, and made their solution more and more impossible.

  • This dialectic, initiated by Euclides, became more and more opposed to the testimony of experience; in the hands of Eubulides and Alexinus it degenerated into hairsplitting, mainly in the form of the reductio ad absurdum.