different between captious vs passionate

English

Etymology

From Middle English capcious, from Middle French captieux, or its source, Latin capti?sus, from capti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæp??s/

Adjective

captious (comparative more captious, superlative most captious)

1. (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.

   Synonyms: tricky, thorny, sophistical

2. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky.
   • 1968, Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):

     But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.

   • 2009, Anne Karpf, The Guardian, 24 Jan 2009:

     The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.

   Synonyms: carping, critical, faultfinding, hypercritical, nitpicky

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• autopsic

English

Etymology

From Middle English passionat, from Medieval Latin passionatus, past participle of passionare (“to be affected with passion”); see passion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pæ??n?t/, /?pæ??n?t/
• Hyphenation: pas?sion?ate

Adjective

passionate (comparative more passionate, superlative most passionate)

1. Given to strong feeling, sometimes romantic, sexual, or both.
2. Fired with intense feeling.
   • 1718, Matthew Prior, Solomon, and other Poems on several Occasions, Preface, in Samuel Johnson (editor), The Works of the English Poets, London: J. Nichols, Volume 31, 1779, p. 93,^[1]

     Homer intended to shew us, in his Iliad, that dissentions amongst great men obstruct the execution of the noblest enterprizes […] His Achilles therefore is haughty and passionate, impatient of any restraint by laws, and arrogant of arms.

3. (obsolete) Suffering; sorrowful.
   • 1596, William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John, II. i. 544:

     She is sad and passionate at your highness’ tent.

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. ii. 124:

     Poor, forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,

Synonyms

• (fired with intense feeling): ardent, blazing, burning, dithyrambic, fervent, fervid, fiery, flaming, glowing, heated, hot-blooded, hotheaded, impassioned, perfervid, red-hot, scorching, torrid

Derived terms

• passionate friendship

Related terms

• passion
• passive
• passivity
• patience
• patient

Translations

Noun

passionate (plural passionates)

1. A passionate individual.

Verb

passionate (third-person singular simple present passionates, present participle passionating, simple past and past participle passionated)

1. (obsolete) To fill with passion, or with another given emotion.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xii:

     Great pleasure mixt with pittifull regard, / That godly King and Queene did passionate [...].

2. (obsolete) To express with great emotion.
   • 1607, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, III. ii. 6:

     Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands / And cannot passionate our tenfold grief / with folded arms.

Further reading

• passionate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• passionate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Latin

Adjective

passi?n?te

1. vocative masculine singular of passi?n?tus

References

• passionate in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)

Middle English

Adjective

passionate

1. Alternative form of passionat