pettifog

• POS: Verb (usu participle)
• HYPHEN: pet=ti=fog

CIDE DICTIONARY

pettifog, v. i. [Petty + fog to pettifog.].

 To do a petty business as a lawyer; also, to do law business in a petty or tricky way.  S. Butler.  [1913 Webster]

pettifog, v. t. 

 To advocate like a pettifogger; to argue trickily; as, to pettifog a claim.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

pettifog, v.intr. (pettifogged, pettifogging)
1 practise legal deception or trickery.
2 quibble or wrangle about petty points.

Etymology

back-form. f. PETTIFOGGER

THESAURUS

pettifog

argue, argufy, bandy words, bicker, carp, catch at straws, cavil, choplogic, contend, contest, cross swords, cut and thrust, cut up, discept, dispute, fault-find, find fault, give and take, hassle, have it out, join issue, lock horns, logomachize, moot, nitpick, pick holes, pick to pieces, plead, polemicize, polemize, pull apart, pull to pieces, quibble, spar, take exception, take sides, tear apart, tear to pieces, thrash out, try conclusions, wrangle