adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Excessive or petty criticism countable, uncountable
2. 2
   persistent petty and unjustified criticism wordnet

Adjective

1. 1
   Tending to find fault.

Adjective

1. 1
   tending to find and call attention to faults wordnet
2. 2
   tending to make moral judgments or judgments based on personal opinions wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

captiousadverse criticismanimadversionaspersionbad noticesbad press

Etymology

From fault + finding.

Related phrases

find fault

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.