Word.ws English Dictionary

caviling

caviling is the present participle and gerund 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

Noun

caviling (plural cavilings)

  1. cavilation

Forms of caviling

pluralcavilings

Words formed from caviling

Questions about caviling

What does caviling mean?
Caviling means cavilation.
What is caviling the present participle and gerund of?
Caviling is the present participle and gerund of cavil.
What part of speech is caviling?
Caviling is a noun.
What is the plural of caviling?
The plural of caviling is cavilings.

Words near caviling in the dictionary

  1. cavilation
  2. cavilations
  3. caviled
  4. caviler
  5. cavilers
  6. caviling
  7. cavilingly
  8. cavilings
  9. Cavill
  10. cavillation
  11. cavillations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caviling (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: “caviling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caviling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.