Definition of "pettifogged" [pettifogged]

• Simple past tense and past participle of pettifog. (verb)

Wiktionary.org : Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• "It is true that he made amends by adding, when his lecture was published, a counter statement; but that such a man should have seriously cited such a work shows the widespread mischief done among people not versed in engineering lore by the admirably written romance of Smiles, who as Edward C. Knight, in his Mechanical Dictionary, truly declares, has "pettifogged the whole case.""
• "But Fom was never known to lie; she only pettifogged."
• "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."