CAVIL

[Dr. Goodword]

• cavil •

Pronunciation: kæ-vêl • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: To quibble, to persistently bring up trivial issues or criticisms, to engage in negative knit-picking.
Notes: People who cavil are cavilers because they are so cavilous (if you think this a Latin word) or cavilsome (if you think it now Anglicized). The British seem to prefer doubling the L before vowels: caviller and cavillous.

In Play: We tend to cavil over trivial things: "Mortimer, let's not cavil over who is going to put a quarter in the parking meter! Let's just do it before we get a more expensive parking ticket." Of course, the size of an issue is in the eye of the beholder: "Mama, please don't cavil over who is going to clean the kitchen; you've had more experience at it than I."

Word History: English grabbed this word from Middle French caviller "to mock, jest". The French inherited it from Latin cavillari "to jeer", a verb based on the noun cavilla "jeering". This word is the root calvi "to trick, deceive" after metathesis which switched the positions of L and the V. Calvi also underlies calumnia "calumny", borrowed from Latin as calumny. Now, French is famous for converting CA into CHA (Latin castellus "castle" became chateau in French while caritas "affection" became charité "charity"). So French converted calumnia to challenge, yet another offspring of calvi borrowed by English. (Let's not cavil over our debt of gratitude to our favorite Florida photographer, Suzanne Williams, for suggesting today's Good Word.)

[Perry]

Yes. It would have been cavalier to cavil over the debt of gratitude.

[scw1217]

Thanks, good Dr., for using this word. I get so behind beginning of each week, that I missed it when it was originally sent.