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Definition of Hairsplitting
1. Adjective. Developed in excessively fine detail. "Finespun distinctions"
2. Noun. Making too fine distinctions of little importance. "They didn't take his hairsplitting seriously"
Definition of Hairsplitting
1. a. Making excessively nice or trivial distinctions in reasoning; subtle.
Definition of Hairsplitting
1. Noun. The act of considering or arguing about fine details, or worrying about minutiae. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Hairsplitting
1. [n -S]
Lexicographical Neighbors of Hairsplitting
Literary usage of Hairsplitting
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Looking Backward, 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy (1888)
"We should have no sort of use for the hairsplitting experts who presided and
argued in your courts. You must not imagine, however, that we have any ..."
2. The Promised Land by Mary Antin (1912)
"Thus I, in my hairsplitting analyses of persons and motives; while the portrait
went steadily on. It was Miss Hale who first found a use for our superfluous ..."
3. Publishers Weekly by Publishers' Board of Trade (U.S.), Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, American Book Trade Union, Am. Book Trade Association, R.R. Bowker Company (1882)
"... and without a trace of mere hairsplitting ; and in its aspect as an account
of the early traditions of all the great nations of the earth in connection ..."
4. The American Historical Review by American historical association (1897)
"Indeed, we may well wonder with Dr. Lea whether these hairsplitting theologians
had any conception of permanent moral distinctions, (¡¡ven a rigid system of ..."
5. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1919)
"... twice since the days of Leibnitz, into a productiveness of knowledge which is
not paralleled in the world. The opposition to the hairsplitting rational- ..."
6. The American Journal of Psychology by Granville Stanley Hall, Edward Bradford Titchener (1913)
"The method of exposition, also, is unfortunate: the popular reader is offered
hairsplitting distinctions and abstract explanations in terms of the ..."
7. Technology Review by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Association of Class Secretaries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alumni Association (1899)
"... inspectors to begin a policy of hairsplitting which would jeopardize production.
Gen. EM Weaver writes from the office of the chief of Coast Artillery, ..."
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