Captious vs Perverse - What's the difference?
captious | perverse | Synonyms |
(obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.
* 1605 , (William Shakespeare), :
* 1784 , (William Cowper), "A Review of Schools", in Poems , 1859 ed.,
* {{quote-book, 1815, date=March 24, chapter=To William Lisle Bowles, author=(Samuel Taylor Coleridge), pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=P98V-3-qzp0C&pg=PA558, page=558, edition=2000 Oxford ed., isbn=0198187459, title=Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
, passage=Were you aware that in your discourse last Sunday you attributed the captious Problem of the Sadducees to the Pharisees, as a proof of the obscure and sensual doctrines of the latter? }}
Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky
* 1968 , Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):
* 2009 , Anne Karpf, The Guardian , 24 Jan 2009:
Turned aside; hence, specifically, turned away from the (morally) right; willfully erring; wicked; perverted.
Obstinately in the wrong; stubborn; intractable; hence, wayward; vexing; contrary.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (legal, of a verdict) Ignoring the evidence or the judge's opinions.
Captious is a synonym of perverse.
As adjectives the difference between captious and perverse
is that captious is (obsolete) that captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical while perverse is turned aside; hence, specifically, turned away from the (morally) right; willfully erring; wicked; perverted.captious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- I know I loue in vaine, striue against hope: / Yet in this captious , and intemible Siue / I still poure in the waters of my loue / And lacke not to loose still.
page 219:
- A captious question, sir, and yours is one, / Deserves an answer similar, or none.
- But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.
- The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious , and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.
Synonyms
* (disposed to find fault) faultfinding, nitpicky, carping, critical, hypercritical * (tending to capture or entrap) tricky, thorny; sophisticalDerived terms
* captiously * captiousnessAnagrams
*perverse
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Welcome to the plastisphere, passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.
