pettifog

To pettifog is ‘to engage in legal chicanery’ or ‘to quibble over insignificant details,’” the dictionary advised.

From Washington Times ● Feb. 2, 2020

Lanny, you, with all your intellect—when you know the oath as well as I—you pettifog like that!

From The Last Shot by Frederick Palmer

From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he began to lose peace of mind.

From The Mystery of Metropolisville by Edward Eggleston

It wouldn't do me any good to pettifog in this matter.

From Opening a Chestnut Burr by Edward Payson Roe

He had to pettifog or say it was a forgery.

From Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon by Frederick Van Voorhies Holman

The advice given yesterday with an assurance that only a settled and undoubting conviction could possibly excuse, was to-day pettifogged away mainly on the ground of Charley's worldly prosperity.

From The Faith Doctor A Story of New York by Edward Eggleston

Truths once accepted as "self-evident," since become awkward of acceptance, were ever thus pettifogged out of the path, and fundamental principles have in this way prescriptively been tampered with.

From "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" by Charles Francis Adams

In every part of Italy,—in Malta, in Savoy, in Parma, in Lucca, in Genoa,—and finally even in Spain, he had pettifogged, bullied, threatened, until his opponents had given way.

From Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2 by Andrew Dickson White

But Fom was never known to lie; she only pettifogged.

From The Madigans by Orson Lowell

Fancy a creature that has pettifogged, as an underling too, all his life.’

From That Stick by Charlotte Mary Yonge

The Economist described his viewpoint succinctly: “He paints stewards of fair play — regulators and boards — as pettifogging enemies of progress,” wrote its pseudonymous business columnist “Schumpeter.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2022

But the vast majority of our elected representatives overruled the pettifogging legalisms of Kennedy and the others.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 13, 2021

On the first day of the Trump impeachment trial, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts uttered the word "pettifogging" to illustrate a point.

From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2020

In a similar spirit, there is a rule stating that instruction creep should be avoided and that pettifogging is not welcome.

From Slate ● Jun. 22, 2014

And to begin with, look what a pull Cromwell had over Pym—the one name full of a resonant imperialism, the other mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree.

From Business English A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig