hair-splitting

See also: hairsplitting

English

Etymology

• From the gerund form of split hairs

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Noun

hair-splitting (countable and uncountable, plural hair-splittings)

1. (idiomatic) the act of finding exceedingly small differences which are probably neither important nor noticeable to most people.
   • 2006, Ian Aitken, in The Guardian, Richard Clements Obituary

     Dick's Tribune poked endless fun at the hair-splitting sectarianism of the various Trotskyist groups jostling on the fringes of the Labour party at that time.

Translations

the act of finding exceedingly small differences which are neither important nor prominent

• Finnish: hiusten halkominen (idiomatic)
• French: enculage de mouches (fr) m (slang), couper les cheveux en quatre (fr)
• German: Haarspalterei (de) f
• Hungarian: szőrszálhasogatás (hu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Icelandic: hártogun f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: hårkløveri n

• Russian: дото́шность (ru) (dotóšnostʹ), зану́дство (ru) (zanúdstvo), въе́дливость (ru) (vʺjédlivostʹ)
• Swedish: hårklyveri (sv)