quibble [E17th] A quibble was originally a pun or play on words. It probably comes from Latin quibus, meaning ‘for which’ or ‘for whom’, a word that often appeared in legal documents and so was associated with subtle distinctions or verbal niceties. The idea of a pun led to that of basing an argument on some likeness or difference between words or their meanings, and from this arose the notion of a petty objection or a trivial point of criticism.