Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A petty, quibbling, unscrupulous lawyer.
- n. One who quibbles over trivia.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An inferior attorney or lawyer who is employed in small or mean business.
- n. The rockling.
Wiktionary
- n. Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections.
- n. An unscrupulous or unethical lawyer, especially one of lesser skill.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A lawyer who deals in petty cases; an attorney whose methods are mean and tricky; an inferior lawyer.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a disputant who quibbles; someone who raises annoying petty objections
- n. a person (especially a lawyer or politician) who uses unscrupulous or unethical methods
Etymologies
- From petty + fogger. (Wiktionary)
- Probably petty + obsolete fogger, pettifogger. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He had long been reading law in his curious, spasmodically concentrated way, and he had practised a little as a "pettifogger," that is, an unlicensed practitioner in the inferior courts.”
“Before this I had ventured to try a few law cases before justices of the peace, both in the country, in villages, and in the city, and I had some professional triumphs, occasionally over a regular attorney, but more commonly meeting the "pettifogger," who was of”
“The unintended consequence is empowerment of the moneyed few that can still afford the overpriced beltway pettifogger who knows the ropes.”
“The chief pettifogger and Energizer Bunny for the pro-Clinton forces was political strategist James Carville, whose official title was Senior Political Adviser to the President.”
“Although now I have to thank you Andy Pandy because I'm now aware that I'm a pettifogger sense 2.”
“Giving new meaning to the terms “Philadelphia Lawyer”, “pettifogger”, “law monger”.”
Watch Biden make a gaffe about a gaffe right in front of Obama...
“Wondering: why people watch entertainment tv. .still .... that, and why words like pettifogger aren't used in the everyday anymore.”
““Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship. — “That wretched old pettifogger,” she added in”
“To do otherwise faces America with the stark choice of going to War with Russia because some pettifogger who is Head of State in one of those Countries has a bone to pick, and picks it because NATO is with us, or withdrawing from the NATO Treaty rather than go to War.”
Ilan Goldenberg: The Powell Endorsement and the End of the Republican Foreign Policy Establishment
“If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger rendering each other mutually hideous and complementing each other; the pettifogger making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey making the pettifogger horrible.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pettifogger’.
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Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 212 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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Silly-sounding words
Serious words that sound silly when you say them
philosophunculist, argy-bargy, Labradoodle, shittah, shittim, floccinaucinihili..., succedaneum, honorificabilitud..., fag-ma-fuff, buffarilla, yazzihamper, mammothrept and 140 more...
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 161 more...
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unkind words
unkind words or those refering them.
twit, gibe, blockhead, bonehead, cretin, dullard, imbecile, simpleton, clod, dunce, simp, ignoramus and 39 more...
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• How to make a worker cry (derogativ...
What?! And I'm supposed to pay for your lousy work, you... you...
dauber, pettifogger, tinker, quill-driver, rhymester, numbnuts, peer, cartophiling, notaphily, speleology, letterboxing, metrophile and 43 more...
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jung
Epimethean, enantiodromia, pettifogger, captiousness, sophistry, abstruse, importunate, philautic, misautic, mneme, psychoasthenia
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~~Olde-Fashioned Insults~~
ragamuffin, muttonchops, tatterdemalion, nincompoop, whippersnapper, bootlicker, backscratcher, loggerhead, weisenheimer, hornswoggler, thimblerigger, quacksalver and 111 more...
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Unsavoury Types
insults, epithets, etc.
drotchel, drossel, drazel, flutch, lollard, scobberlotcher, ragabash, faineant, cad, buffoon, martinet, tosspot and 116 more...
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mager's Words
enigmatic, pragmatic, pulchritudinous, nincompoop, annihilation, sociality, entailment, acrosome, egalitarian, culture, technocracy, shenanigan and 541 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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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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xyzprincess's Words
crabwise, virtu, peripatetic, idyll, trencherman, equivocate, flummery, hoi polloi, pixilated, albatross, wangle, bodacious and 170 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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JLaughWork's Words
sesquipedalian, perspicacity, fervid, onomatopoeia, eschatology, prognostication, pedagogue, expiation, integrity, metamorphosis, supercilious, xenophilia and 229 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pettifogger.

yarb Go fog yourself. Nov 21, 2009
bilby I'm quite disappointed that, after all these years, the quality of your fogging hasn't improved. Nov 21, 2009