pettifogging
- noun
- /ˈpɛtɪˌfɔɡɪŋ/
- Archaic
:
discusiones triviales
- And by the time he rose at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, pettifogging legalities had yielded to majestic eloquence.
Examples
-
Now, let's say some pettifogging ambulance chaser managed to prove to the world that the United States government couldn't make planes any better than Detroit p122 can make automobiles.
Fiction book (1995) -
Consider the legalistic pettifogging and semantics.
Academic text (2007) -
Academics supposedly indulge in pettifogging to obscure their own muddled thinking.
Academic text (2016) -
The boldest of these numerical distorters is Robert A. Pape, who leads the charge with his own personal brand of statistical pettifogging.
Academic text (2015) -
But to hear Pat Doyle tell the story, you'd think it was one of a pettifogging attorney welching out on a contractor and getting away with it on a petty technicality.
Blog text (19) -
The pettifogging over minor regulations delayed the project for months.
-
During the meeting, his pettifogging arguments frustrated everyone present.
-
The negotiations were plagued by pettifogging, focusing on trivial points instead of the main issues.
Synonyms
42
3.9
Repeated small arguments about unimportant things that annoy people
27
4.2
A noisy argument about something unimportant
24
3.7
A short, unimportant argument between people
16
6.7
A long heated argument about a specific issue
15
6.8
Argue about very small differences that do not matter
4
8.6
Repeated small complaints about unimportant things that are not fair and often annoy people
2
7.4
A noisy argument that lasts a long time
2
2.4
A time when people strongly disagree and speak loudly
1
7.7
Making very small, unimportant differences in an argument or discussion
1
8.2
Paying too much attention to small unimportant details in a debate
1
4.6
Small unkind complaints about unimportant things that do not help
1
3.0
A small disagreement about something unimportant
Arguing about small unimportant details to avoid making a decision
A very angry, petty argument with personal insults
A silly, small argument that people make much bigger
Saying the same small complaints again and again
A tendency to argue with others
Antonyms
How Petty
- Archaic
26
7.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Pettifogging comes from the same idea as pettifogger, where petty ('small') plus a part like fog ('to confuse' or 'trick') described someone who argued over little points. So, pettifogging means the act of arguing or fighting about unimportant details.