cavelling

Didn't Alexis DeT have something to say about public opinion in America--how it was raised to such a high degree of influence, and that a democracy tends to coincide with very high influence of public attitudes and associated cavelling in by individuals.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S. Wood ricklibrarian 2006

Fastidious quibbling and cavelling, never can facilitate moral reformation.

A Controversy Between "Erskine" and "W. M." on the Practicability of Suppressing Gambling. 1862

After such authorities, and what has elsewhere been shewn, can any cavelling be for one moment permitted as to the cholera in Sunderland not being of the same nature as that of India?

Letters on the Cholera Morbus. Containing ample evidence that this disease, under whatever name known, cannot be transmitted from the persons of those labouring under it to other individuals, by contact—through the medium of inanimate substances—or through the medium of the atmosphere; and that all restrictions, by cordons and quarantine regulations, are, as far as regards this disease, not merely useless, but highly injurious to the community. William Fergusson 1809

Here Mr. Theobald endeavours to prove false criticisms, want of understanding Shakespear's manner, and perverse cavelling in Mr. Pope: He justifies himself and the great dramatic poet, and essays to prove the Tragedy in question to be in reality Shakespear's, and not unworthy of him.

The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Cibber, Theophilus, 1703-1758 1753