The term captious is a qualifying adjective that is used to refer to those expressions, questions or ways of speaking that imply a certain deception or lie in order to confuse the interlocutor. Normally, the term as an adjective is used when talking about leading questions, those questions that are formulated in such a way that the person who must answer them must stop to think about their meaning because it is not entirely clear.
When we talk about questions or leading expressions, we are talking about ways of communicating that aim to confuse or lose the interlocutor with whom we are speaking. Thus, a leading question can cause the answer to be incorrect due to the confusion generated by the question itself. These types of questions or expressions are very typical of areas in which people's knowledge or behavior is evaluated and in which tricky forms of communication can be used to put the interlocutor to the test. Two typical examples of them are educational settings in which teachers can ask their students leading questions to exercise their understanding of the given topic and, on the other hand, legal settings in which people who give testimony or testimony about certain facts they are put to the test from leading questions in order to check whether what they say is true or not.
Generally, the questions or the tricky formulas for the communication are considered fallacies or incorrect because it is implying something that is not the case in reality. However, they can also be seen as deceptive forms that precisely aim to test the interlocutor and determine if he is fully capable of answering that question or if he is truly saying what he really knows or knows.
