Adjective : He could never praise without adding a captious remark. ,captious questions.    From Dictionary.com. 

Rather, you've accused me of captiousness and questioned by manners.    From Wordnik.com.  [The truth of Europe's roots] Reference

This looks like mere captiousness but it covers a perfectly genuine grievance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Road to Wigan Pier] Reference

“Yes — and I suppose you want to know why,” she replied with dry captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Gambler] Reference

"Why do you begin all your phrases with 'and?'" asked the public prosecutor, with the captiousness of an inexorable critic.    From Wordnik.com.  [The French Immortals Series — Complete] Reference

Which still, with froward captiousness, impains1230.    From Wordnik.com.  [Faust. Part I. 1000-1499] Reference

Merle was sensitive to these little winds of captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Wrong Twin] Reference

Surely there is little wisdom and much captiousness in this feeling.    From Wordnik.com.  [Diary in America, Series Two] Reference

Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Rambler, sections 55-112 (1750-1751); from The Works of Samuel Johnson in Sixteen Volumes, Vol. IV] Reference

Dr. Burges, continuing in his captiousness against this judgment of the.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649] Reference

"Yes -- and I suppose you want to know why," she replied with dry captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Gambler] Reference

Near her lived an old widow, who was a proverb for captiousness and wrongheadedness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Marion Harland's autobiography : the story of a long life,] Reference

Not a little of his captiousness with Mary V was caused by his secret worry over his empty pockets.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Thunder Bird] Reference

She does not, however, give the scope she did before the day was fixed, to her playful captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7)] Reference

One difficulty being solved, Moses raised another, but not in the spirit of captiousness or reluctance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Expositions of Holy Scripture] Reference

He had for a perpetual annoyance all the captiousness and the quarrels of the two Lees, Izard, and Thomas Morris.    From Wordnik.com.  [Benjamin Franklin] Reference

Comfort is best promoted by avoiding a spirit of captiousness in traveling, not only in Spain, but upon life's entire journey.    From Wordnik.com.  [Due West or Round the World in Ten Months] Reference

So judges Fitz-Dennis; who, you must know by this time, has the judgment of Moliere's old woman, and the captiousness of Dennis.    From Wordnik.com.  [Letters of Edward FitzGerald in two volumes, Vol. 1] Reference

Perhaps she was becoming selfish and exacting She would watch herself more closely, and beware of self-indulgence and captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Planter's Northern Bride] Reference

He was very contradictory and pragmatical, and apt, as I thought, to differ from Master Simon now and then out of mere captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Bracebridge Hall] Reference

He was very contradictory and pragmatical, and apt, as I thought, to differ from Master Simon now and then, out of mere captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists] Reference

But she remarked it was the same way with M. Ralph, and he bore the captiousness with so sweet a temper that she felt moved to emulate him.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Little Girl in Old Quebec] Reference

For the direct beneficiaries of a £117bn bail out even to splutter a word of protest here offers a new textbook yardstick for captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Dave's Part] Reference

It was in fact impossible to have been more free from captiousness, jealousy, envy, or any other form of pettiness than this truly noble man.    From Wordnik.com.  [Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti] Reference

I dwell upon this point, not in any spirit of captiousness, I need scarcely say, but because it exemplifies a fairly persistent characteristic of.    From Wordnik.com.  [Edward MacDowell] Reference

Nevertheless the little cloud between them was real, and the result was often a faint captiousness on Constance's part in judging the doctor's behaviour.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Old Wives' Tale] Reference

I was struck by the sudden transition from the touching sensibility with which she had just been speaking to me to this petty reckoning and captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Childhood] Reference

She should be mild, good-humoured, cheerful and tender; he cool, rational, and vigilant; without acrimony, devoid of captiousness, and free from passion.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Adventures of Hugh Trevor] Reference

Hector Garret was content since he saw Leslie safe; he accused her of captiousness and nervousness, but it was the waywardness and perversity of illness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Girlhood and Womanhood The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes] Reference

Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging the votes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents would have hesitated to display.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Toys of Peace, and other papers] Reference

"If the peevish captiousness of these persons is greatly to influence.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance] Reference

A flannel dressing-gown, sits an old man, -- old, and full of the snarling captiousness that makes some white hairs hideous.    From Wordnik.com.  [Molly Bawn] Reference

"I hope you are telling me the truth, because I should be sorry to believe you were beginning your new life in a spirit of captiousness and rebellion.    From Wordnik.com.  [Vice Versa or A Lesson to Fathers] Reference

Which still, with froward captiousness, impains.    From Wordnik.com.  [The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English.] Reference

1 was discharged for captiousness.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Renegade History of the United States] Reference