Definition of "pettifoggery" in English

noun

1. The actions of a pettifogger; a trivial quarrel.

   • He was capable of using lawyerly rhetoric, at times, to the brink of pettifoggery.
   • Yet even Harlan was to prove capable of grievous pettifoggery on the racial issue.
   • [Frankfurter's reasoning in Beauharnais v. Illinois] struck Black and the other three Roosevelt appointees who joined his dissent as noxious pettifoggery[.]