Word.ws English Dictionary

pettifogged

pettifogged is the simple past and past participle of pettifog.

Meaning of pettifog

Verb

pettifog (third-person singular simple present pettifogs, present participle pettifogging, simple past and past participle pettifogged)

  1. (intransitive) To quibble over trivial matters; nitpick.
    • Don't pettifog or we will soon grow weary.
  2. (intransitive) To do a petty business as a lawyer, or carry out law business in a petty or tricky way.
    • He is a common barreter for his pleasure, that takes no money, but pettifogs gratis.c. 1840, “Samuel Butler”, in Lives of Eminent and Illustrious Englishmen

Questions about pettifogged

What is pettifogged the simple past and past participle of?
Pettifogged is the simple past and past participle of pettifog.

Words near pettifogged in the dictionary

  1. pettier
  2. petties
  3. pettiest
  4. Pettifer
  5. pettifog
  6. pettifogged
  7. pettifogger
  8. pettifoggeries
  9. pettifoggers
  10. pettifoggery
  11. pettifogging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pettifogged (page history and authors); pettifog (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pettifogged.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pettifogged. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.