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pettifog

(v): argue over petty things
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about 3 hours ago chained_bear said:

I want, against my better judgment, for this word to be pettifrog.

about 7 hours ago yarb said:

The castle, which was our only tangible resource, was unfortunately mortgaged to several creditors, the principal of whom was one Bernard Astuto. Cunning by name, and cunning by nature! He practised as an attorney at Valencia, and bore his faculties in all the infamy of pettifogging; law and equity conspired in his person to push the trade of cozening and swindling to the utmost extremity.

- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 5 ch. 1

12 months ago John said:

"Men were strange: it would never have occurred to her that Walter was capable of such baseness, and yet you never knew; perhaps his seriousness was merely a mask for a mean and pettifogging nature."

- The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham

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