In a word: cavil

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word:

CAVIL

Dr. Johnson's definitionof cavil (pronounced KAV-uhl, with a short a) still holds: "To raise captious and frivolous objections." It is to object with little reason, to resort to trivial faultfinding, to carp or quibble. As a noun, it is an instance of quibbling. You will encounter considerable caviling in logomachy, disputes over language.

It comes to English from the Old French caviller, which derives from the Latin cavillari and cavilla, "jeering," "mockery."

Example: Though the verb is usually intransitive, Milton has a sweet transitive example in Paradise Lost: "Wilt thou enjoy the good, / Then cavil the conditions?"