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cavil: msg#00019

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: cavil

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The Word of the Day for May 20 is:

cavil \KAV-il\ verb
*1 intransitive sense : to raise trivial and frivolous
objection
2 transitive sense : to raise trivial objections to

Example sentence:
It may seem petty to cavil at minor flaws given the film's
unquestionable excellence as a whole, but the ending did seem to
lack credibility.

Did you know?
"You must be joking!" That's just one of the things you
might be tempted to exclaim if you found yourself quarreling
with a caviler -- and you'd be right, etymologically speaking at
least. "Cavil" derives from the Latin verb "cavillari,"
meaning "to jest" or "to raise silly objections," which in turn
derives from the Latin noun "cavilla," meaning "raillery." It
has been used in English to denote petty quibbling since at
least 1542, when Nicholas Udall used it in his translation of
Erasmus' _Apophthegms_: "For when the Sophistes fell to
cauillyng ... and triflyng, lytle by lytle, their estimacion
decayed."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.





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