pettifogger

For nearly three years now, I’ve been fascinated by the performance art of this blustering pettifogger.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2023

“The noun pettifogger has two main senses: ‘A lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable; shyster’ and ‘one given to quibbling over trifles.’

From Washington Times ● Feb. 2, 2020

The verb was actually formed from the noun "pettifogger", which was used in the 16th Century to describe those who would argue over minor details in a fee.

From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2020

The learned editor apparently has a greater future as a pettifogger than as an attorney.

From Time Magazine Archive

This lawyer, Overend by name, was a sort of pettifogger, who laid himself out for poor men's work.

From The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant by Alexander Johnstone Wilson

This would still the voices of those pettifoggers who will protest that Oswald was not actually proved guilty in a court of law.

From Time Magazine Archive

Quoting from Thomas Jefferson's diary reference to "soliciting pettifoggers," Joe Stamper of Antlers, Okla., urged his fellow lawyers not to "equate legal services with soap and breakfast foods."

From Time Magazine Archive

One of them when he saw the pettifoggers putting their heads together, and lamenting their sad lot, up comes he and says: "Did not I tell you the Saturnalia could not last for ever?"

From Apocolocyntosis by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Humanity will have the best against such pettifoggers as you.

From Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 by Adam G. de Gurowski, Count

The profits of agitating pettifoggers would have materially lessened in a district where he acted as a magistrate; and duels would have been nipped in the bud at his regimental mess.

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 4 by Hamilton Wright Mabie