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

These arguably hairsplitting thoughts nagged at me thanks to my job as a congressional correspondent focused on federal spending.

From New York Times • Jan. 17, 2024

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

And her father, who now knew from Weir the story of the happening of thirty years before, assured her that she need be troubled over no moral hairsplitting.

From In the Shadow of the Hills by Shedd, George C. (George Clifford)