noun
- people who make excessively fine or pedantic distinctions; those who argue over trivial details
Usage: plural form; informal; often used critically
Examples
- The hairsplitters in the committee spent hours debating the exact wording of a single sentence.
- Don't be one of those hairsplitters who argues about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
- The legal hairsplitters found loopholes in every clause of the contract.
- She dismissed her critics as mere hairsplitters more interested in semantics than substance.
- The debate devolved into hairsplitters arguing over definitions rather than addressing the main issue.