[? dim. of QUIB.]
1. A play upon words, a pun.
1611. L. Barry, Ram Alley, III. i. We old men have our crotchets, our conundrums, Our figaries, quirks and quibbles, As well as youth.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac., I. § 2 (1737), I. 64. All Humour had something of the Quibble. The very Language of the Court was Punning.
1779–81. Johnson, L. P., Pope, Wks. IV. 156. The opposition of Immortalis and Mortalis, is a mere sound, or a mere quibble.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., xi. 100. Several questions, involving a quibble or play upon words.
2. An equivocation, evasion of the point at issue; an argument depending on some likeness or difference between words or their meanings, or on some circumstance of no real importance.
1670. Moral State Eng., 23. An unnatural Antithesis, a forced quibble.
1675. Baxter, Cath. Theol., I. III. 41. To answer all these fallacies and quibbles, founded in some false supposition or ambiguous word.
1768. H. Walpole, Hist. Doubts, 100, note. Henry was so reduced to make out any title to the crown, that he catched even at a quibble.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiv. III. 471. To a plain understanding his objections seem to be mere quibbles.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th C., I. ii. 280. Those advocates of persecution who would stoop to any quibble in their cause.
fig. 1796. Mrs. M. Robinson, Angelina, II. 184. His features were all quibbles; for it was impossible to guess what they meant for two minutes together.
b. The use of quibbles, quibbling.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 100. A liar is upon the reserve, and wou’d throw off the odium by quibble and equivocation.
1771. Junius Lett., lxi. 319. You attribute it to an honest zeal in behalf of innocence, oppressed by quibble and chicane.
3. attrib. and Comb., as quibble-catching, -loving adj., -sanctioning adj., -springe.
1678. Rymer, Trag. last Age, 4. Much less have I cast about for Jests, and gone a quibble-catching.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), V. 234. A quibble-loving lawyer. Ibid. (1829), Justice & Cod. Petit., 115. The quibble-sanctioning judge.
1830. Moriarty, Husband Hunter, III. 202. Law pun-traps and quibble-springes.
