The act of making overly fine or unnecessary distinctions in arguments; arguing about things that are not important.
Gerund form of the phrasal verb 'split hairs,' where 'hair' represents the smallest possible unit and 'split' means to divide. The form became standardized in English by the 1700s as a noun describing the behavior itself.
Ironically, 'hairsplitting' itself demonstrates what it describes—English speakers split the hair on this compound noun by debating whether it's one word, hyphenated, or two words depending on context and region.
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