pettifog

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

From Washington Times ● Feb. 2, 2020

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

From Opening a Chestnut Burr by Edward Payson Roe

When his law lies upon his hands he will afford a good pennyworth, and rather pettifog and turn common barreter than be out of employment.

From Character Writings of the 17th Century by Various

Thurston then proceeds to pettifog about his injunction to keep his letter to Congress about the Donation Land Bill "dark till next mail."

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

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

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 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

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

The word is so seldom used that Google Ngrams, which measures the frequency that words appear in books and journals, shows that "pettifogging" peaked in 1900, but has gradually disappeared.

From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2020

By around the start of Wednesday’s proceedings, the pettifogging over Nadler’s use of “language that is not conducive to civil discourse” had extended from Republicans in the executive, to the judiciary, to the legislative.

From Slate ● Jan. 22, 2020

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 The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) Juvenilia and Other Papers by Robert Louis Stevenson