pettifogging

How to use pettifogging in a sentence

• He is only a pettifogging country Squire, whose views on the Land Question are ob-solete in tot-to.

  Mushroom Town | Oliver Onions

• Dare not say it is, or I will, upon the spot, divorce your pettifogging soul from your carrion carcass!

  The Fortunes of Nigel | Sir Walter Scott

• By conforming to the Laws of this Universe; instead of trying by pettifogging to evade and profitably contradict them.

  History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) | Thomas Carlyle

• I think you're nothing but a pettifogging lawyer—that there ain't no partner, and I'm no better'n a fool to talk to you.

  Max Fargus | Owen Johnson

• The pettifogging objections to some social plan had very little chance of survival owing to the dynamic power of the reformers.

  A Preface to Politics | Walter Lippmann