These words refer to the attitude or act of disapproval that consists in attacking weaknesses, imagined or real, in someone else or in his behaviour or achievements. Fault-finding is the most neutral of these words in that it can, conceivably, apply to a helpful or friendly ferreting out of actual weaknesses: giving his next-to-final draft to a friend who could always be counted on to be openly fault-finding . More often, it is true, the word suggests an eagerness to seek out weakness for its own sake, but even here the word is less severe in tone than the following words: certain that the inspecting officer would prove to be tediously fault-finding .

Hypercritical suggests a harsher attitude than that suggested by fault-finding , pointing to someone over-eager to disparage, possibly out of a reluctance to recognize or honour the good qualities in others: views so hypercritical that his companion wondered what on earth could possibly meet with his approval. In further contrast to fault-finding , a hypercritical person need not necessarily dwell on weaknesses in something at all; he may simply reject it wholesale as obviously inferior. Censorious is similar to hypercritical in allowing the possibility of a blanket rejection. It is even harsher in tone, however, suggesting an attitude that is exclusively negative in its judgements. Someone who is hypercritical might be expected to spell out his views in some detail and to have, at least, standards for measurement; someone censorious , however, might merely express his negative evaluation without explanation or without having such standards. The word, furthermore, has overtones of prissy or priggish ill will: easy for the contemplative man to be censorious of every attempt at acting out an ideal.

Captious suggests a further extreme than the foregoing words, but not so much towards a greater severity of judgement as towards a truly irresponsible or whimsical refusal to be pleased by the most meticulous effort. The word may suggest fault-finding that deliberately wishes to confuse rather to enlighten, especially when this results in fruitless argument: an interviewer who made captious remarks in order to get "interesting responses" from his subjects.

Carping and cavilling are better used to describe single acts of fault-finding rather than a hypercritical or censorious attitude. Both may suggest a zealous glee in scornfully condemning something on the basis of petty considerations or niggling faults; some difference between them can be seen, however, by noting that cavilling stems from words meaning jest, mock or raillery, and carping from words meaning dispute or boast. Carping best suggests a pedantic railing at or making a mockery of something for small failures; cavilling more often suggests strident or grating verbal attacks in which reasonable or generally acceptable propositions are imputed because of trivial lapses: a carping reviewer who though a few split infinitives more important than the whole range and sweep of the work; the prosecution’s cavilling rebuttal that seemed to see in the defendant’s nervous manner a proof of guilt.

Nit-picking is a colourful and informal word that specifically stresses an excessive concern with small or trivial faults or with making distinctions so fine as to be pointless; this concern may be either well-intentioned, though misguided, or deliberately hostile: diplomats busy at their nit-picking while the whole world was going up in flames; an opponent who could find nothing wrong with my report and so had to content himself with nit-picking . Pedantic is a word that is less directly related to the notion of disapproval. It emphasizes, instead, someone intent on needless displays of learning or petty points of scholarship: a pedantic dissertation, full of musty footnotes and gobbledygook. In the context of disapproval, it is more formal alternative for nit-picking : pedantic objections to practical proposals.