hairsplitting

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But Oedipus is in no mood for academic hairsplitting.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 13, 2025

This may sound like hairsplitting, but when it comes to Verdi’s longest opera, less is less, even with a strong cast like the Met’s for this revival.

From New York Times • Nov. 4, 2022

But such hairsplitting is far beyond the remit of Lindelof and Cuse, who have crafted “The Hunt” less as a polemic than as an infantile, pox-on-both-your-houses rant.

From Washington Post • Mar. 11, 2020

This is a strange time to be debating the merits of truth in journalism on the stage—and it is journalism that John is practicing here, regardless of his genre hairsplitting.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 22, 2018

It is mere philosophical sophistry and hairsplitting, and we must believe, as a matter of fact, that physical energy is really physical, and not psychical, in its nature.

From The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal by Carrington, Hereward