quibbling

/ˈkwɪblɪŋ/

quibbling is the present participle and gerund of quibble.

Meaning of quibble

quibble (third-person singular simple present quibbles, present participle quibbling, simple past and past participle quibbled)

(informal, intransitive) To complain or argue in a trivial or petty manner.
- They are constantly quibbling over insignificant details.
(informal, rare, transitive) To contest, especially some trivial issue in a petty manner.
- The customer quibbled the bill.

quibbling (plural quibblings)

petty argument
- Suddenly he perceived that he was sure of God. Not perhaps of the God of Nicaea, but what did these poor little quibblings and definitions of the theologians matter?1917, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 5, in The Soul of a Bishop

plural	quibblings

What does quibbling mean?: Quibbling means petty argument.
What is quibbling the present participle and gerund of?: Quibbling is the present participle and gerund of quibble.
What part of speech is quibbling?: Quibbling is a noun.
How do you pronounce quibbling?: Quibbling is pronounced /ˈkwɪblɪŋ/.
What is the plural of quibbling?: The plural of quibbling is quibblings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: quibbling (page history and authors); quibble (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-quibbling.wav.

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