Pettifogger - Definition And Meaning - Wordnik

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Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A lawyer whose practice involves petty matters or who lacks sound legal judgment or skills.
  • noun One who quibbles over trivia.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An inferior attorney or lawyer who is employed in small or mean business.
  • noun The rockling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A lawyer who deals in petty cases; an attorney whose methods are mean and tricky; an inferior lawyer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections.
  • noun An unscrupulous or unethical lawyer, especially one of lesser skill.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a disputant who quibbles; someone who raises annoying petty objections
  • noun a person (especially a lawyer or politician) who uses unscrupulous or unethical methods

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably petty + obsolete fogger, pettifogger (probably akin to obsolete German Fugger, successful merchant, usurer, huckster, after the House of Fugger).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From petty + fogger.

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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.

    Abraham Lincoln Godfrey Rathbone Benson Charnwood 1904

  • 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

    Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 A Political History of Slavery in the United States Together With a Narrative of the Campaigns and Battles of the Civil War In Which the Author Took Part: 1861-1865 Joseph Warren Keifer 1884

  • The unintended consequence is empowerment of the moneyed few that can still afford the overpriced beltway pettifogger who knows the ropes.

    Stuart Whatley: This Side of Democracy 2010

  • 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.

    Blood Sugar 2010

  • The unintended consequence is empowerment of the moneyed few that can still afford the overpriced beltway pettifogger who knows the ropes.

    Stuart Whatley: This Side of Democracy 2010

  • Wondering: why people watch entertainment tv. .still .... that, and why words like pettifogger aren't used in the everyday anymore.

    stem-d Diary Entry stem-d 2009

  • Although now I have to thank you Andy Pandy because I'm now aware that I'm a pettifogger sense 2.

    Ambiguity: Mixed Messages and Style Overlap BikeSnobNYC 2009

  • Giving new meaning to the terms “Philadelphia Lawyer”, “pettifogger”, “law monger”.

    Watch Biden make a gaffe about a gaffe right in front of Obama... Ann Althouse 2009

  • “Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship. — “That wretched old pettifogger,” she added in

    Saint Ronan's Well 2008

  • 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 2008

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synonyms (56)

Words with the same meaning

  1. Philadelphia lawyer
  2. ambulance chaser
  3. belittler
  4. bunco artist
  5. bunco steerer
  6. captious critic
  7. cardsharp
  8. cardsharper
  9. carper
  10. carpetbagger
  11. caviler
  12. censor
  13. censurer
  14. common scold
  15. con artist
  16. con man
  17. confidence man
  18. crimp
  19. critic
  20. criticizer
  21. equivocator
  22. faultfinder
  23. frondeur
  24. hairsplitter
  25. hedger
  26. horse coper
  27. horse trader
  28. jackleg
  29. land pirate
  30. land shark
  31. land-grabber
  32. momus
  33. mortgage shark
  34. mystificator
  35. mystifier
  36. nitpicker
  37. obscurantist
  38. palterer
  39. picayune critic
  40. pitchman
  41. prevaricator
  42. pussyfoot
  43. pussyfooter
  44. quibbler
  45. scold
  46. shark
  47. sharp
  48. sharper
  49. sharpie
  50. shortchanger
  51. shuffler
  52. shyster
  53. slicker
  54. smellfungus
  55. spieler
  56. tergiversator

hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. malcontent
  2. offender
  3. wrongdoer

same context (24)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. God
  2. ago
  3. another
  4. answer
  5. ant-eater
  6. cheesemonger
  7. clothes
  8. cowskin
  9. daown
  10. difference
  11. disbeliever
  12. else
  13. folk
  14. folks
  15. lascar
  16. particular
  17. period
  18. preparation
  19. quī
  20. scapegrace
  21. time-servers
  22. toadyism
  23. waiting-woman
  24. writers

relateds (2)

relateds

  1. pettifog
  2. pettifoggery

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Comments

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  • bilby commented on the word pettifogger

    I'm quite disappointed that, after all these years, the quality of your fogging hasn't improved.

    November 21, 2009

  • yarb commented on the word pettifogger

    Go fog yourself.

    November 21, 2009

  • qms commented on the word pettifogger

    A fellow I know is a blogger,

    An alt-right conspiracy flogger.

    No absence of facts

    Or motive distracts

    From work of a true pettifogger.

    October 12, 2017

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Tag » What Does The Term Pettifogger Mean