hair-splitting

There is my defence on Terminus, or better say on hair-splitting.

It is a danger to which ingenious and hair-splitting writers are liable.

This is not hair-splitting in the opprobrious sense of that term.

I know your hair-splitting habit; I at once anticipate your reply.

But he disliked the corrupt method of his countrymen, who indulged in hair-splitting, casuistry, and subtleties.

Moreover, this hair-splitting was considered sublimest piety, and superseded everything else.

Plain and safe men never disparaged his arguments by calling them hair-splitting or metaphysical.

The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges.

It will not be worth our while to wade through all the technical and hair-splitting discussions of these points.

It is better, however, not to raise the question with beginners, since it seems to them like hair-splitting to no purpose.