Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pettifog \Pet"ti*fog\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pettifogged; p. pr.
& vb. n. Pettifogging.] [Petty + fog to pettifog.]
To do a petty business as a lawyer; also, to do law business
in a petty or tricky way. ``He takes no money, but pettifogs
gratis.''
--S. Butler.
Pettifogging \Pet"ti*fog`ging\, a. Paltry; quibbling; mean.
Pettifogging \Pet"ti*fog`ging\, n. Pettifoggery.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1570s as a verbal noun; c.1600 as a past participle adjective; see pettifogger. A verb pettifog is rare and attested only from 1640s.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of pettifog English)
WordNet
v. argue over petty things; "Let's not quibble over pennies" [syn: quibble, niggle, bicker, squabble, brabble]
[also: pettifogging, pettifogged]
adj. quibbling over insignificant details; "caviling pettifoggers and quiggling pleaders"-Edmund Burke; "her nagging and carping attack"; "thought her editor unnecessarily nitpicking"; "a pettifogging lawyer's mind"; "had no patience with quibbling critics" [syn: caviling, carping, nitpicking, quibbling]
See pettifog
Usage examples of "pettifogging".
He was notorious as a creature of pettifogging detail who loved the quibbles of the lawcourts and the squabbles of the church.
Minor's men hadn't made it to the battle of Bladensburg at all—because Minor had allowed an officious junior clerk at the armory to delay him endlessly with pettifogging accounting procedures before he'd release the arms and munitions the regiment needed.
Eventually he had persuaded them to let him take enough, and was disgusted that they had made him lose his temper with their pettifogging.
It was hard, he thought, to be within sight of safety and almost of home, and to be baulked by the want of a few wretched shillings and by the pettifogging mistrustfulness of paid officials.