pettifogger

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections and sophistry.

   • 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.
2. 2

   An unscrupulous or unethical lawyer, especially one of lesser skill.

   • "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.
   • This gentleman (for such he was, however strange ladies who class country attorneys with vulgar pettifoggers in fashionable novels may deem the assertion) was the son of a brave officer,...
   • . . .yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness. . . .

The neighborhood

• neighborpettifog
• neighborpettifoggery