faultfinding

Some common synonyms of faultfinding are captious, carping, censorious, critical, and hypercritical. While all these words mean "inclined to look for and point out faults and defects," faultfinding implies a querulous or exacting temperament.

The synonyms captious and faultfinding are sometimes interchangeable, but captious suggests a readiness to detect trivial faults or raise objections on trivial grounds.

The words carping and faultfinding are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, carping implies an ill-natured or perverse picking of flaws.

Although the words censorious and faultfinding have much in common, censorious implies a disposition to be severely critical and condemnatory.

While in some cases nearly identical to faultfinding, critical may also imply an effort to see a thing clearly and truly in order to judge it fairly.

The words hypercritical and faultfinding can be used in similar contexts, but hypercritical suggests a tendency to judge by unreasonably strict standards.