Today's Word "Captious"
Published in Vocabulary
captious \KAEP-shehs\ (adjective) - 1 : Not merely deceptive but designed to (mis)lead you to the wrong conclusion, e.g. a sign, argument, or advertisement; sophistical. 2 : Having an ill-natured inclination to find faults and raise objections; caviling, carping.
"Alison pointed out that 'Have you stopped beating your husband?' is a captious question with no effectively correct answer."
From Old French captieux, from Latin captisus, the adjective from captio "seizure, sophism," the noun of capere "to seize." Related words from Latin include "capture" and "captain." The English word "catch" comes from Old North French cachier "to chase" from the same Latin word. The original root, *kap, came down to English as "have" (from Old English "habban"; cf. German "haben") and "heavy" (from Old English "hefig"). In German it became Haft "arrest" but also the suffix haft "like, having," as in lebhaft "lively, spirited" from leb-en "live" + -haft.
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