Word.ws English Dictionary

petty-fog

petty-fog is the alternative form 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

Forms of petty-fog

third-person singular presentpetty-fogs
present participlepetty-fogging
past participlepetty-fogged
pastpetty-fogged

Questions about petty-fog

What is petty-fog the alternative form of?
Petty-fog is the alternative form of pettifog.

Words near petty-fog in the dictionary

  1. petty theft
  2. petty thefts
  3. petty treason
  4. petty whin
  5. petty-bourgeois
  6. petty-fog
  7. petty-fogged
  8. petty-fogger
  9. petty-foggers
  10. petty-fogging
  11. petty-fogs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petty-fog (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: “petty-fog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/petty-fog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.