Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To act like a pettifogger. See Synonyms at quibble.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To play the pettifogger; do small business as a lawyer.
- n. A confusing fog or mist: in allusion to pettifog, v.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To do a petty business as a lawyer; also, to do law business in a petty or tricky way.
- v. colloq. To advocate like a pettifogger; to argue trickily.
WordNet 3.0
- v. argue over petty things
Etymologies
- Back-formation from pettifogger. (Wiktionary)
- Back-formation from pettifogger. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“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
“Let the rest of the guttersnipes pettifog about celebrity doping.”
The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: The Dignity of Attending a Press Conference
“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?"
“Why do you pettifog about actions that would be indefensible in any other realm?”
“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.”
“The popular understanding of the word _criticize_ is to find fault, to pettifog.”
Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned
“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”
“But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that”
“It wouldn't do me any good to pettifog in this matter.”
“Verb to pettifog (third-person singular simple present pettifogs, present participle pettifogging, simple past and past participle pettifogged) 8500 was just a number I picked out of thin air.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pettifog’.
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WF - list of EN back-formations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
aborigine, accrete, acculturate, admix, admixture, adolesce, adsorb, adulate, advect, aesthete, air-condition, anticline and 212 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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My Little Phonies
Names for the next generation of My Little Ponies. Inspired by Star's list.
juggernaught, flamboyant, cuddly maggot, astrobleme, agroof, windburn, poshlost, crucifer, feedbag, dunderwhelp, nebelwerfer, bliss ninny and 453 more...
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Verbages
puddle, kowtow, tessellate, defalcate, embezzle, enkindle, ablate, frivol, moonlight, tongue-tie, gobble, pettifog and 58 more...
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Poetic
the blue hour, dinner-pail, long-drawn, pettifog, spoonmeat, crawler, eructate, voiced, medial, tessellated, eyeballs, amphigory and 48 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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euphonic logorrhea
cephalopodous, plumulaceous, oblomovism, etiolation, pavonine, somnolent, logorrhea, fulguration, gossamer, prestidigitation, daffodil, inchoate and 174 more...
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P is for Porch Dog
My P Words
paddington, paddy wagon, paddy whack, paddywhack, paisano, pandemonium, pantaloon, pantaloons, paper tiger, papoose, parachute pants, parcel and 109 more...
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kringlan's Words
fecund, riposte, nebbish, nonpareil, deign, eschew, imbroglio, spelunking, fop, foofaraw, tundra, talon and 128 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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words that make me happy inside
amanuensis, inamorata, armigerous, yurt, fugacious, ephemeral, gambit, defenestration, orotund, toper, teuchter, apostasy and 90 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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Necessary?
"Words are very..."
The above was the original description for this list. Unfortunately, it doesn't convey much about the list contents.
I'm leaving you to draw your own conclusions abo...supererogation, fruitcake, unbeknownst, melifluous, bane, cavy, unnecessary, lyrical, question, undertow, weapon, arduous and 200 more...
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Words that delight me
tepid, perfunctory, trope, benign, inordinate, bewildering, ersatz, boon, delectable, apt, scuttlebutt, sequester and 398 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pettifog.
chained_bear I want, against my better judgment, for this word to be pettifrog. Sep 19, 2008
yarb 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 Sep 19, 2008
john "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 Sep 23, 2007