Word.ws English Dictionary

caviled

caviled is the simple past and past participle of cavil.

Meaning of cavil

Verb

cavil (third-person singular simple present cavils, present participle (US) caviling or (UK) cavilling, simple past and past participle (US) caviled or (UK) cavilled)

  1. (intransitive) To criticise for petty or frivolous reasons.
    • 'Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    Synonyms:
    be hypercritical, nitpick, pettifog, split hairs

See all 2 meanings of cavil

Questions about caviled

What is caviled the simple past and past participle of?
Caviled is the simple past and past participle of cavil.

Words near caviled in the dictionary

  1. caviine
  2. caviines
  3. cavil
  4. cavilation
  5. cavilations
  6. caviled
  7. caviler
  8. cavilers
  9. caviling
  10. cavilingly
  11. cavilings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caviled (page history and authors); cavil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “caviled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caviled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.