find fault

See also: findfault

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

find fault (third-person singular simple present finds fault, present participle finding fault, simple past and past participle found fault)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic, often followed by with) To criticize something excessively.

   No matter what I do, he always finds fault.

   My supervisor always finds fault with my work.

   • 1959 November, “Talking of Trains: The anti-railway prejudice”, in Trains Illustrated, page 518:

     When one has an intimate knowledge of a business it is easy—and to some extent self-satisfying—to find fault with the way it is run by those in charge.

Derived terms

• faultfinding

Translations

criticize excessively

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 挑錯／挑错 (tiāocuò), 挑剔 (zh) (tiāoti), 找岔子 (zh) (zhǎo chàzi)

• Finnish: olla sanomista
• French: pinailler (fr)
• German: ^{(please verify)} pingelig sein (de)
• Hungarian: kifogásol (hu), (colloquial) beleköt (hu), akadékoskodik (hu)
• Irish: (find fault with) faigh locht ar
• Japanese: 咎める (ja) (とがめる, togameru), 揚げ足を取る (あげあしをとる, ageashi-o toru)
• Latin: incūsō
• Maori: whakakoha
• Russian: придира́ться (ru) impf (pridirátʹsja), придра́ться (ru) pf (pridrátʹsja)
• Telugu: తప్పుపట్టు (tappupaṭṭu)
• Turkish: hatalı bulmak, aşırı eleştirmek (tr), kulp takmak (tr) (idiomatic)
• Vietnamese: bắt bẻ (vi)

See also

• it is easy to find a stick to beat a dog

Anagrams

• fault-find, faultfind