Meaning of pettifogulize | Babel Free

Definitions

To act as a pettifogger; to use contemptible tricks.

nonce-word, obsolete

Examples

“So far from seeking to "pettifogulise"—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 everybody's words, an unintentional opening left for double⟳ interpretations.”

“On these high authorities I rest⟳ my case, and when I quote from these adjudications you will find⟳ to your dismay and horror that you are nothing but a pettifogulizing idiot.”

““To pettifogulize,” says De Quincey, “is to find⟳ evasions for any purpose in a trickster’s minute tortuosities of construction.” Hermeneutic theology, according to this definition, is mere pettifogulizing systematized and elevated to the dignity of a sacred science.”

“I remember⟳ an attempt⟳ a few years ago to pettifogulize the Legislature in this State, when the small attorney met this unanswerable claim⟳ to representation by stating that he conceded the women had a right to be represented, but they were all represented now, for they had brothers or fathers or cousins or husbands, or ought to have⟳, who could and did represent⟳ them.”

“Is the case to be pettifogulized? Will this great government stifle evidence in a court of justice in order⟳ to convict a man?”

“And when, during the next semester, we were expected to read⟳ widely outside of class, but to pettifogulize (as I might have⟳ said then) with our professor over a handful of philological problems, though I roamed far abroad in the chivalric lais and romances, I was so frequently absent from our linguistic symposia that I had to be content with a rather disreputable grade.”

“But, oh my yes, women do often imagine⟳ that they love⟳, and with all that faded and pettifogulizing ammunition of theirs—lipstick, rouge, pomade, and no end⟳ of swabbings from the stybian pot—pointedly set⟳ out to do so.”

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