pettiˈfogulize, v. nonce-wd.
[f. pettifogger.]
intr. To quibble. Hence pettiˈfogulizer.
| 1853 De Quincey Autobiog. Sk. Wks. I. 59 So far from seeking to ‘pettifogulise’—i.e. to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction. Ibid. 60, I showed so much scrupulosity about the exact value and position of his words, as finally to draw upon myself the vexatious reproach of being habitually a ‘pettifoguliser’. 1872 W. Minto Eng. Prose Lit. i. i. 77 This ‘petti⁓fogulising’. |