hairsplitting

Other forms of hairsplitting

plural

hairsplittings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hairsplitting

What does hairsplitting mean?

hairsplitting means "making too fine distinctions of little importance". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hairsplitting?

hairsplitting has 3 syllables: hair-split-ting. The stress falls on "hair".

What is another word for hairsplitting?

Close synonyms include word-splitting, finespun. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hairsplitting a common word?

hairsplitting is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.