foible

It helps fund managers justify their salaries and makes ordinary people feel better because of a foible known as the illusion of control.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 2, 2026

Mice, it turns out, can’t puke — a little foible that typically makes it difficult to use them to study nausea.

From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2022

“Nathan for You” was zippy, and loath to waste a minute, especially when it could reveal a charming or dumbfounding human foible.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2022

Jones happily recites the joke using the other word, and the two men laugh, having been caught in a foible of their profession.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2021

About the middle of that year, 1788, he toned down his severe estimate of the king, to whom he attributed "no foible which will enlist him against the good of his people."

From Thomas Jefferson The Apostle of Americanism by Gilbert Chinard

“She certainly writes about people’s limitations and foibles, but always with this generosity and this empathy.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

“It is infectious to play a character who sees the best in people and isn’t mad at the world for all its foibles and bullies and shadows,” Sudeikis recently told the Hollywood Reporter.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

The river itself becomes a kind of character, silently and impartially overseeing the foibles of humanity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

But the tone is often more satiric than somber, Park highlighting Man-su’s foibles and insecurities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 6, 2026

“I think these personal foibles of mine were tolerated among many as long as things were going well,” he said.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis