Meaning

noun an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections

verb evade the truth of a point or question by raising irrelevant objections

verb argue over petty things

originOrigin uncertain. Possibly from quib (“quibble”, noun) + -le (diminutive ending). Quib is probably from Latin quibus (“in what respect? how?”), which appeared frequently in legal documents and came to be suggestive of the verbosity and petty argumentation found therein; or perhaps an alteration of quip. Alternatively, perhaps related to dialectal Dutch kwebbelen (“to speak quickly and…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0