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

Now comes another occasion for jurisprudential hairsplitting about contacts between the government and religious schools.

From Washington Post • Mar. 16, 2021

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

Yet even the new rules can seem like hairsplitting.

From New York Times • Sep. 7, 2017

On the other hand, the Tossafists, the school of commentators succeeding him, by their petty quibbling and hairsplitting casuistry made the Talmudic books more intricate and less intelligible.

From Jewish History : an essay in the philosophy of history by Dubnow, S. M. (Simon Markovich)