Cavilling [verb]

He was angry and impatient with the "cavilling spirit of mediocrity," that takes pleasure in the lapses of "the mighty-souled."

At length, without any measures of force, the cavilling of Spain ceased and she acquiesced in the transfer.

Mr. Caxton (descending from his stilts with an air as mildly reproachful as if I had been cavilling at the virtues of Socrates).

No cavilling about the national debt, however incurred; that is sacred as honor, and must be paid, principal and interest.

As for Marble, it was not in his nature to acquiesce in such an arrangement, without much cavilling and contention.

She was also liable—as such persons often are—to mistake cavilling for spirit and wit—a most tedious error!

It accepts what is given without question, or cavilling as to much or to little, leaving the giver altogether free.

The following year brought a production which the cavilling reader might excusably regard as a fulfilment of this jocose threat.

Such cavilling as there was came from the organized support of his own party and had little importance because it did.

History does not record the result, beyond a cavilling incrimination about a diamond-headed cane.