Word.ws English Dictionary

cavils

cavils is the third-person singular simple present indicative of cavil.

cavils is the plural 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 cavils

What is cavils the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Cavils is the third-person singular simple present indicative of cavil.

Words near cavils in the dictionary

  1. caviller
  2. cavillers
  3. cavilling
  4. cavillings
  5. cavillous
  6. cavils
  7. cavimorph
  8. cavimorphs
  9. cavin
  10. Cavina
  11. caving

Source and license

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