Word.ws English Dictionary

splitting hairs

splitting hairs is the present participle and gerund of split hairs.

Meaning of split hairs

Verb

split hairs (third-person singular simple present splits hairs, present participle splitting hairs, simple past and past participle split hairs)

  1. (idiomatic) To consider or argue about fine details; to worry about minutiae.
    • Let's get everything sorted into the right drawers and not split hairs about subdividing it further yet.
    Synonyms:
    cavil

See all 2 meanings of split hairs

Questions about splitting hairs

What is splitting hairs the present participle and gerund of?
Splitting hairs is the present participle and gerund of split hairs.

Words near splitting hairs in the dictionary

  1. splittin'
  2. splitting
  3. splitting a gut
  4. splitting field
  5. splitting fields
  6. splitting hairs
  7. splitting off
  8. splitting on a rock
  9. splitting one's sides
  10. splitting the baby
  11. splitting the blanket

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: splitting hairs (page history and authors); split hairs (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:

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