A.Word.A.Day --captious

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captious

PRONUNCIATION:

(KAP-shuhs)

MEANING:

adjective: Having an inclination to find faults, especially of a trivial nature.

ETYMOLOGY:

Via French from Latin capere (to seize). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kap- (to grasp), which is also the root of captive, capsule, capable, capture, cable, chassis, occupy, and deceive. Earliest documented use: 1380.

USAGE:

"Simon Cowell, the breathtakingly captious judge on American Idol, has dashed more dreams than an alarm clock."
David Hiltbrand; 'Idol' Hands are This Devil's Workshop, As He Rakes Teen Dreams Over the Coals; The San Diego Union-Tribune; Aug 4, 2002.

See more usage examples of captious in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions. -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., novelist (1922-2007)

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