pettifog
Americanverb (used without object)
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to bicker or quibble over trifles or unimportant matters.
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to carry on a petty, shifty, or unethical law business.
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to practice chicanery of any sort.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pettifog
First recorded in 1605–15; back formation from pettifogger “ambulance chaser,” equivalent to petty “inferior, secondary” + fogger “shyster,” from Middle Low German voger or Middle Dutch voeger “an arranger, a fixer”; akin to Old English gefōg “a joining, a joint”; see also petty
Explanation
To pettifog is to argue over small, unimportant issues. If you and your brother pettifog over who gets to sit in the front seat when your mom offers a ride to school, you may both end up taking the bus instead. If you're looking for a colorful, old-fashioned way to say "quibble" or "squabble," pettifog is the word for you. It shares a root with petty, or "trivial," but otherwise its origin is a bit hazy. Experts see a connection to pettifactor, "legal agent who undertakes small cases." And a pettifogger, rather than a quibbler, is a sneaky lawyer, or one who "deals with petty cases."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To pettifog is ‘to engage in legal chicanery’ or ‘to quibble over insignificant details,’” the dictionary advised.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 2, 2020
Thurston then proceeds to pettifog about his injunction to keep his letter to Congress about the Donation Land Bill "dark till next mail."
From Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon by Frederick Van Voorhies Holman
Lanny, you, with all your intellect—when you know the oath as well as I—you pettifog like that!
From The Last Shot by Frederick Palmer
From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he began to lose peace of mind.
From The Mystery of Metropolisville by Edward Eggleston
The popular understanding of the word criticize is to find fault, to pettifog.
From Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned by Christopher Morley
But Fom was never known to lie; she only pettifogged.
From The Madigans by Orson Lowell
In every part of Italy,—in Malta, in Savoy, in Parma, in Lucca, in Genoa,—and finally even in Spain, he had pettifogged, bullied, threatened, until his opponents had given way.
From Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2 by Andrew Dickson White
Fancy a creature that has pettifogged, as an underling too, all his life.’
From That Stick by Charlotte Mary Yonge
The advice given yesterday with an assurance that only a settled and undoubting conviction could possibly excuse, was to-day pettifogged away mainly on the ground of Charley's worldly prosperity.
From The Faith Doctor A Story of New York by Edward Eggleston
Truths once accepted as "self-evident," since become awkward of acceptance, were ever thus pettifogged out of the path, and fundamental principles have in this way prescriptively been tampered with.
From "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" by Charles Francis Adams
The virtue of this concept is that it divorces essential protections from pettifogging debates over the definition of “employee.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2022
But the vast majority of our elected representatives overruled the pettifogging legalisms of Kennedy and the others.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 13, 2021
The word is so seldom used that Google Ngrams, which measures the frequency that words appear in books and journals, shows that "pettifogging" peaked in 1900, but has gradually disappeared.
From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2020
Are you a pettifogging pedant who thinks that the widespread use of the word “decimate” to mean “annihilate”, or “gay” to mean “homosexual”, is a sign of the barbarism and illiteracy of today’s youth?
From The Guardian ● Oct. 7, 2017
Her cunning and shamelessness were largely commented upon at the time; but it was reserved for Mrs. Winslow to inform the world, through my operatives, that George Washington ever descended to this grade of pettifogging.
From The Spiritualists and the Detectives by Allan Pinkerton
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
