Critical, hypercritical, faultfinding, captious, caviling, carping, censorious are comparable when they mean exhibiting the spirit of one who detects and points out faults or defects.
Critical, when applied to persons who judge and to their judgments, is the one of these terms that may imply an effort to see a thing clearly, truly, and impartially so that not only the good in it may be distinguished from the bad and the perfect from the imperfect, but also that it as a whole may be fairly judged or valued.
Critical may also imply a keen awareness of faults or imperfections with often the suggestion of loss of fairness in judgment.
When this loss of fairness is to be implied or when the judge’s undue awareness of defects and overemphasis of them is to be suggested, writers often prefer hypercritical to critical.
Faultfinding sometimes takes the place of critical, sometimes of hypercritical, but usually suggests less background, less experience, or less fastidiousness than either; it is therefore frequently used when an unreasonably exacting or a querulous temperament is also to be suggested.
Captious implies a readiness, usually a temperamental readiness, to detect trivial faults or to take exceptions on slight grounds, because one is either unduly exacting or perversely hard to please.
Caviling usually implies a captious disposition but stresses the habit or act of raising picayune or petty objections.
Carping, far more than hypercritical or faultfinding, implies illnatured or perverse picking of flaws and often in addition suggests undue emphasis upon them as blameworthy.
Censorious implies a disposition or a tendency to be both severely critical and condemnatory of what one criticizes.