hair-splitting
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.
In his written judgement, Mr Justice Knowles said the grounds on which the panel had rejected the judge's application for relocation amounted to "semantic hair-splitting".
From BBC • Mar. 6, 2024
VOA’s stance has led to some intricate hair-splitting.
From Washington Times • Oct. 25, 2023
“I was a hair-splitting moralist, judgmental and proud,” Harley confesses many decades later.
From Washington Post • Jan. 8, 2023
The court’s hair-splitting exercise illustrates what one judge called an “Escherian Stairwell.”
From Slate • Oct. 18, 2021
The case in the Gardeners' Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthew's book, for the passages are therein scattered in three places; but it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that.
From Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters by Darwin, Charles
