The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hairsplitter \Hair"split`ter\ (-spl[i^]t`t[~e]r), n.
One who makes excessively fine or needless distinctions in
reasoning; one who quibbles. ``The caviling hairsplitter.''
--De Quincey.
Wiktionary
alt. A person who makes extremely, possibly excessively, fine distinctions (who would separate something as fine as a hair into two pieces and distinguish them). n. A person who makes extremely, possibly excessively, fine distinctions (who would separate something as fine as a hair into two pieces and distinguish them).
WordNet
n. a disputant who makes unreasonably fine distinctions
Usage examples of "hairsplitter".
The striped-pyjamas guy upstairs must have been a word person, then: a RejoovenEsense speechwriter, an ideological plumber, a spin doctor, a hairsplitter for hire.
Now there was a real sailor, an asshole to work foranda perfectionist hairsplitter, but the bosun had spent twenty-seven years working for driven men who demanded perfection and were satisfied with nothing less.
Some military hairsplitter, no doubt, a uniformed and bemedaled attorney who could reduce any drama to orderly patterns of dusty yellowed paper?
Valerena Other dropped the hairsplitter, started stripping the still twitching body.
As she turned she produced a hairsplitter with her right hand, a House issue energy gun with her left.
He took a captured charge pack himself, along with his own hairsplitter and extra magazine.