cavil

“The history demonstrates beyond cavil that the founding generation understood that ‘legislatures’ would operate as normal legislatures, not independent legislatures, with respect to both procedure and substance,” he writes.

From New York Times ● Mar. 11, 2022

The organization’s main cavil — that the measure will have inordinate impact on small medical practices — is largely a smokescreen.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2020

This cavil has no bearing on the outcome of the case.

From Slate ● Feb. 20, 2019

They talk a lot about how something must be done about inequality and the need to address social unrest, but cavil at the idea they might be a big part of the problem.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 1, 2019

The committee awarded Livingston his doctorate without cavil.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Among its cavils are that the AI-produced images have flaws that would have been caught by human animators, and also that Coke hasn’t accommodated “its customers’ aversion to AI.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2025

The short answer to these cavils is that such hand-wringing is simply not a part of Brooks’s sunny disposition.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2021

Don’t be put off by these cavils, though.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2018

Indeed, more than once they have drawn criticism for burying their fundamental message - that society is running some huge risks -- in caveats and cavils.

From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2013

In these notes, though he cavils at several unimportant points of the relation, he suffers the essential matter to pass unchallenged.

From The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman

Prospective investors had caviled at “the benevolence of Starbucks management”, he said, which gave all employees health insurance and stock options; they wanted the money spent on investor returns.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 30, 2017

Critics caviled in this case because cub reporters do not write editorials under their signatures on the front pages.

From Time Magazine Archive

Indeed, some U.S. policymakers caviled at Thant's plan.

From Time Magazine Archive

Meanwhile, the FCC caviled about the frequencies he wanted to use.

From Time Magazine Archive

The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying, upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.

From The Cruise of the Dry Dock by T. S. Stribling

This lack of a central authority is one of the reasons why Dimon cavilled in such strong terms last week.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 17, 2017

Critics cavilled, questioned the veracity of many incidents, doubted this man had experienced them all.

From Time Magazine Archive

Critics cavilled slightly at his tendency to inject cosmic significance into his characters' activities.

From Time Magazine Archive

This inconsiderate partiality of the softer sex might be cavilled at, but to Chittaranjan it did not seem unpleasant.

From Mashi and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Is it not enough for thee to have cavilled at the first page of the Old Testament on "scientific" grounds?

From Inspiration and Interpretation Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford by John William Burgon

So what was I caviling about to myself during intermission?

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2025

What artist would want to tap into the flow of my caviling thoughts in the middle of a performance?

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2022

“Why do you wear that stuff?” she was asked, a question that has passed between many a caviling mother and obdurate teenage daughter.

From New York Times ● Jun. 21, 2016

It would come off as cheeky caviling to basically say, “I don’t like the way you defended me and my property from a criminal.”

From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2016

And while I'm not caviling, you will pardon me, son, if I suggest that hereafter you play square with me.

From Blacksheep! Blacksheep! by Meredith Nicholson

One reading of “The Shroud of Color” should be enough to convince the most cavilling reader.

From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021

In the last month, the drip of doubtful decisions and cavilling explanations has become relentless.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 12, 2018

But it's Guineas weekend, a good time to celebrate the summer game rather than cavilling.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 30, 2010

Whereupon police, who had been listening, courteously hustled cavilling Major Franco and his huddle to jail for overnight detention.

From Time Magazine Archive

None, that is, worthy of anything but cavilling mention.

From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger