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pettifog

UK /ˈpɛt.iˌfɒɡ/verb

pettifog is a verb meaning “To quibble over trivial matters; nitpick” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-E-T-T-I-F-O-G and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 91 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does pettifog mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To quibble over trivial matters; nitpick.

    Don't pettifog or we will soon grow weary.

  2. 2

    To do a petty business as a lawyer, or carry out law business in a petty or tricky way.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce pettifog?

  • UK /ˈpɛt.iˌfɒɡ/

Pettifog has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-pettifog.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of pettifog

  • pettifogs present, singular, he/she/it
  • pettifogging participle, present
  • pettifogged participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is pettifog?

Pettifog appears about once in every 91 million words in written English, the 305,310th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Pettifog in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense to quibble:

LanguageWords
Frenchavocasser

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does pettifog come from?

Back-formation from pettifogger.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).