Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To act as a pettifogger; use petty and contemptible means.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To act as a pettifogger; to use contemptible tricks.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb nonce word, obsolete, intransitive To act as a
pettifogger ; to usecontemptible tricks .
Etymologies
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Examples
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So far from seeking to "pettifogulize" -- _i. e._, to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction -- exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost every body's words, an unintentional opening left for double interpretations.
Autobiographical Sketches Thomas De Quincey 1822
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