pettifogger
Pronunciation Noun
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Pronunciation Noun
pettifogger (plural pettifoggers)
- Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections and sophistry.
- 1809, Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York, ch. 39:
- Hence the cunning measure of appointing as ambassador some political pettifogger skilled in delays, sophisms, and misapprehensions, and dexterous in the art of baffling argument.
- 1809, Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York, ch. 39:
- An unscrupulous or unethical lawyer, especially one of lesser skill.
- Synonyms: shyster
- 1822, Sir Walter Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. 11:
- "An inn, or a tavern . . . these are places where greasy citizens take pipe and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most unhappy victims.
- 1885, The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 6:
- . . .yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness. . . .
- 1926 June 28, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846584,00.html National Affairs: Blind Mans Huff]," Time:
- "Donald Hughes, well known in Minneapolis as a conscienceless shyster, was placed in charge of the case. . . . Mr. Edgerton, a high class, reputable lawyer, was called in of counsel from another city to lend respectability to the crooked, unprincipled, blackmailing pettifogger, Hughes."
- German: Haarspalter
- German: Winkeladvokat
- Portuguese: rábula
- Spanish: leguleyo, picapleitos, buscapleitos, rábula, soplacausas, abogadillo
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004