Word.ws English Dictionary

hairsplit

hairsplit verb: to make fine distinctions concerning.

Verb

hairsplit (third-person singular simple present hairsplits, present participle hairsplitting, simple past and past participle hairsplit)

  1. (transitive) To make fine distinctions concerning.
    • The real criticism of your article is not only your attitude of mind as expressed therein, but also in dealing with details and inclination to hairsplit minor matters1922, Sons of the Revolution in State of Virginia Quarterly Magazine, page 28
    • This would lend support to the view that it would be unrealistic to hairsplit various activities of an educational institution to ferret out if any one of them, by itself, involves profit-making.1981, M. P. Agrawal, Taxation of Charity, page 87
  2. (intransitive) To split hairs.
    • How vividly with the recital of these old customs memory reverts to the other quaint and fantastic forms New England piety took on — to the pastor who could hairsplit by the hour 'twixt Free Will and Election1884, Clarence Deming, By-ways of Nature and Life, page 225
    • We are not disposed to refine and hairsplit so as to nullify these wise provisions of the statute1915, South Carolina. Supreme Court, J. S. G. Richardson, Robert Wallace Shand, Cyprian Melanchthon Efird, William Hay Townsend, Duncan C. Ray, William Munro Shand, Reports of Cases Heard and...

Noun

hairsplit (plural hairsplits)

  1. A fine distinction.
    • It's an arguable distinction, but I think it's a hairsplit.
    • I do not think the Constitution should go into working détails or hairsplits that may be necessary when some of the various rights which it defines are rationalized out to their ultimate extrêmes.1970, Canada. Parliament. Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons on the Constitution of Canada, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence: Procès-verbaux Et Témoignages

Forms of hairsplit

Verb
third-person singular presenthairsplits
present participlehairsplitting
past participlehairsplit
pasthairsplit
Noun
pluralhairsplits

Origin of hairsplit

From hair + split; see split hairs.

Questions about hairsplit

What does hairsplit mean?
Hairsplit means to make fine distinctions concerning.
What part of speech is hairsplit?
Hairsplit can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of hairsplit?
The past tense of hairsplit is hairsplit.

Words near hairsplit in the dictionary

  1. hairshirts
  2. Hairsine
  3. hairslide
  4. hairslides
  5. hairsnake
  6. hairsplit
  7. hairsplits
  8. hairsplitter
  9. hairsplitters
  10. hairsplitting
  11. hairsplittings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hairsplit (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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