noun
- the making of unnecessarily fine distinctions.
adjective
- characterized by such distinctions: the hairsplitting arguments of a political debate.
noun
- the making of petty distinctions
adjective
- occupied with or based on petty distinctions
“making over-nice distinctions,” by 1739, from hair + verbal noun from split (v.). To split hairs “make over-fine distinctions” is first recorded 1650s, as to cut the hair. Hair also being 18c. slang for “female pudendum,” hair-splitter was noted in 1811 as slang for “penis.”