cavillation means the act of cavilling. It carries an Arena rating of 1314, earned across 45 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, cavillation ranks #1,561 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #2,606 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #5,097 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #6,338 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
Why “cavillation” is a great word
CAVILLATION — [Noun] The act of raising petty or frivolous objections; captious criticism. From Middle English cavillacioun, from Middle French cavillation, from Latin cavillatio, cavillation- (“jeering, mockery, sophistry”), from cavillari (“to jeer, mock, cavil”). Unlike criticism, which may be a general, often constructive evaluation, or objection, which can be a serious, substantive disagreement, cavillation is the art of the trifling, a deliberate focus on the mote to avoid the beam. It is the sound of someone counting the syllables in a eulogy for a metrical error, the act of chiding a firefighter for soot on their boots while the house still burns, or the exhaustive parsing of a love letter for grammatical flaws. It is the small, cold art of making something good feel insufficient.
Etymology
From Middle English cavillacioun, equivalent to cavil + -ation.
noun
- The act of cavilling.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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