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

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

I wished the corn had been grilled rather than boiled, but that’s a cavil since I consumed two of three ears.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 30, 2018

My one cavil about it is that Ralph Lauren seems to have designed a very strange shield featuring the stars and stripes of the American flag, as though drawing from heraldry.

From Slate ● Feb. 9, 2018

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

Inevitably, as in any operatic career, there were critical cavils.

From New York Times ● Oct. 6, 2018

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2018

Time moves on the same, whatever disparity there may be in our mode of keeping count of it, like true fame in spite of the cavils and contradictions of the critics.

From A Century of English Essays An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time by Ernest Rhys

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

No one has caviled that Hughes, who was too young for combat in World War I and too old for combat in World War II, should have chosen to write about both.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

This logic can not be caviled with or gainsaid.

From History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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

Throughout the country the Commissioners with plenary powers were sent to administer the new oaths, and those citizens who cavilled at taking them were treated as traitors to the King.

From The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History by Martin Andrew Sharp Hume

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

They make deals, unencumbered by caviling aides and persnickety diplomats, as he and Mr. Trump will be when they meet in Helsinki.

From New York Times ● Jul. 15, 2018

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

There will be no caviling at the satisfying antiquity of Fuenterrabia.

From A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

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