Wiktionary
n. (plural of pettifogger English)
Usage examples of "pettifoggers".
The wife keeps herself busy then, devotes herself to handling specie, verdigrises her fingers, takes charge of the breeding of the tenants, the bringing up of the farmers, convokes lawyers, presides over notaries, harangues justices, visits pettifoggers, follows up lawsuits, writes out leases, dictates contracts, feels herself sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and compromises, binds and cancels, cedes, concedes, and retrocedes, arranges, deranges, economises, wastes.
To despise and be despised, to cringe in order to rule, slaves and tyrants in turn, now kneeling before a master, now trampling the people under foot - such was the ambition of all of us, so long as we were men of birth or well educated men, whether common folks or fashionable folks, lawyers or financiers, pettifoggers or wearing swords.
They formed the Misery Loves Company party and as soon as enough vote-finagling thimbleriggers and power-hungry pettifoggers sniffed which way the barbecue-free wind was blowing, they had them a solid legislative representation in Washington.