[f. the verb.]
1. A captious, quibbling or frivolous objection.
1570. Levins, Manip., 124. A cauill, calumnia.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 336/2. I come now to the other part of your cavill, which is in all respectes as untrue and frivolous.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., II. i. 392. That’s but a cauill.
1656. Hobbes, Six Lessons, Wks. 1845, VII. 227. The ninth objection is an egregious cavil.
1735. Berkeley, Free-thinking in Math., § 50. Whether there may not be fair objections as well as cavils.
1850. Gladstone, Glean., V. xliv. 200. To meet this technical cavil on the wording of the Statutes.
2. The raising of frivolous objections; cavilling.
a. 1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. (1666), 135 (J.). The wiser sort of men are not greatly moved hereat, considering how subject the very best things have been always unto cavil.
1611. Bible, Pref., init., If there be any hole left for cauill to enter, (and cauill, if it doe not finde a hole, will make one) it is sure to bee miscontrued.
1729. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. Pref. 9. The first seems … the least liable to cavil and dispute.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. v. 144. His measures were sure to be the subject of perpetual cavil.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. viii. 183. There was no candidate whose claims were altogether without cavil.
† 3. [cf. L. cavilla.] A flout, gibe, jeer. Obs.
1615. Chapman, Odyss., XXII. 235. Eumæus on his just infliction pass’d This pleasureable cavil.
4. Comb., as cavil-proof adj.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., III. viii. § 11. James … granted them a new Corporation Cavill-proof against all exceptions.
