English Language & Usage Asked by Jimmy Breck-McKye on April 8, 2021
I’m looking an adjective that means someone is deliberately finding fault and playing up being offended.
Alice is… Quarrelsome? Captious? Fault-finding?
There are several words like quarrelsome, argumentative & confrontational (may be more) but the closest I can find to your (example) scenario is antagonistic. (See the example from ODO below which is pretty close to yours).
ODO:
ADJECTIVE
1 Showing or feeling active opposition or hostility towards someone or something:
‘He was rude and antagonistic to my friends, kept picking arguments and was often deliberately provocative, manipulating people into tense arguments.’
Correct answer by alwayslearning on April 8, 2021
Alice is a stirrer.
(Aka a shit stirrer or pot stirrer.)
Perhaps this is too general since it is not limited to the incincere offense-seeking
Stirrer
British informal. A person who deliberately causes trouble between others by spreading rumours or gossip.
[...].
‘Unlike Walter, he is a stirrer, a deliberately provocative commentator and a freewheeling iconoclast, infamous for his relentless critique of the American government and military.’
OD
Answered by k1eran on April 8, 2021
You might say Alice is captious:
Tending to find fault or raise petty objections: ‘a captious teacher’
From Oxford Dictionaries.
Answered by Jimmy Breck-McKye on April 8, 2021
Although not directly related to taking offense, the two words that immediately came to mind were
adjective
often arguing or wanting to argue:
and...
ADJECTIVE
Opposing or rejecting popular opinion or current practice:
Contrarian fits less, but it summons an image of someone who wants to or is looking for an excuse to disagree with someone for one reason or another.
Alice is being intentionally arguementative or contrarian as a means of expressing her dislike of Bob.
Answered by Rudi on April 8, 2021
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