captious

adj

1. (obsolete)That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.

   “[…]I know I loue in vaine, ſtriue againſt hope : Yet in this captious, and intemible Siue I ſtill poure in the waters of my loue And lacke not to looſe ſtill[…]”

   “A captious queſtion, Sir, and your’s is one, Deſerves an anſwer ſimilar, or none.”

   “Were you aware that in your discourse last Sunday you attributed the captious Problem of the Sadducees to the Pharisees, as a proof of the obscure and sensual doctrines of the latter?”

2. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky.

   “...not an irritable word had escaped him; and as every captious conclusion and petulant observation had been in days past always attributed, very justly, by Isabella either to the dyspepsia, brought on by his grief for Margarita, or the fever he sustained from the climate,...”

   “But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.”

   “The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.”