noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act of considering or arguing about fine details, or worrying about minutiae. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   making too fine distinctions of little importance wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of hairsplit form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   developed in excessively fine detail wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

finespunadverse criticismanimadversionaspersionbad noticesbad press

Etymology

From hair + splitting.

Related phrases

split hairs

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