Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To play the pettifogger; do small business as a lawyer.
- noun A confusing fog or mist: in allusion to pettifog, v.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb colloq. To advocate like a pettifogger; to argue trickily.
- intransitive verb To do a petty business as a lawyer; also, to do law business in a petty or tricky way.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
quibble over trivial matters;nitpick
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb argue over petty things
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Yet Phil Woolas, the immigration minister (and, as I well remember a nasty little self-centred careerist when he was head of the National Union Students in my college days - a real horrible little greasy pole climber who obviously hasn't changed one jot) continues to prevaricate and pettifog.
Global Voices in English » The Gurkhas: Long History Of Discrimination 2009
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Let the rest of the guttersnipes pettifog about celebrity doping.
The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: The Dignity of Attending a Press Conference BikeSnobNYC 2008
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BTW My lawschool study group met in a Brownstone actually red brick, but why pettifog on Warren St off Court, not far from your address.
"This Supreme Court is quite clearly the enemy of progressivism.... What is to be done?" Ann Althouse 2008
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Why do you pettifog about actions that would be indefensible in any other realm?
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As a staunch conservative Whig he especially loathed President Polk aliberalDemocrot, but he also despised General ZacharyTaylor, another Democrat who acted as if he too hoped to be the next president. ffis ultimate scorn, however, was reserved for Gideon J. Pillow, a pettifog - ging lawyer from a small. town in Tennessee, who was so ineffectual that Clay could not understand why Scott even bothered with him.
Mexico Michener, James 1992
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The popular understanding of the word _criticize_ is to find fault, to pettifog.
Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned Christopher Morley 1923
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But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that convention and deny her any part in its proceedings except as a spectator, what does all your talk about
The Life and Work of Susan B Anthony 01 Harper, Ida H 1899
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But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that convention and deny her any part in its proceedings except as a spectator, what does all your talk about
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years Ida Husted Harper 1891
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But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that
History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I Matilda Joslyn Gage 1863
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It wouldn't do me any good to pettifog in this matter.
Opening a Chestnut Burr Edward Payson Roe 1863
john commented on the word pettifog
"Men were strange: it would never have occurred to her that Walter was capable of such baseness, and yet you never knew; perhaps his seriousness was merely a mask for a mean and pettifogging nature."
- The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
September 23, 2007
yarb commented on the word pettifog
The castle, which was our only tangible resource, was unfortunately mortgaged to several creditors, the principal of whom was one Bernard Astuto. Cunning by name, and cunning by nature! He practised as an attorney at Valencia, and bore his faculties in all the infamy of pettifogging; law and equity conspired in his person to push the trade of cozening and swindling to the utmost extremity.
- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 5 ch. 1
September 19, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word pettifog
I want, against my better judgment, for this word to be pettifrog.
September 19, 2008