"Hairsplitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and a snare" [Denman]; claptrap, cant, mere words; "lame and impotent conclusion" [Othello]. meshes of sophistry, cobwebs of sophistry; flaw in an argument; weak point, bad case. overrefinement[obs3]; hairsplitting &c. v. V. judge intuitively, judge by intuition; hazard a proposition, hazard a guess, talk at random. reason ill, falsely &c. adj.; misjudge &c. 481; paralogize[obs3]. take on faith, take as a given; assume (supposition) 514. pervert, quibble; equivocate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... training in morals for every day living, and of moral training which will harden the will of a fighting body. One moment's reflection will show why they need not be considered separately, and why we can leave it to Webster to do the hairsplitting. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... self-assertion. She relapsed into the mental condition of a juvenile culprit undergoing correction. Now that she was caught, she no longer thought of her offense as venial. The grasp of her captor seemed to put an end to all possible hairsplitting on that point, and prove that it was nothing more nor less than stealing, and a sense of guilt left her without any moral support against her fright. She was only conscious of utter humiliation, and an abject desire to beg off on ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy |
