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pettifogging

adjective

Definition of pettifoggingnext
as in slight
old-fashioned worrying too much about details that are minor or not important pettifogging lawyers

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pettifogging
  1. slight
  2. petty
  3. tiny
  4. minute
  5. trifling
  6. little
  7. trivial
  8. piddling
Adjective
  • In the for-pay security suite, the VPN gets a slight bandwidth boost, doubling the free limit to 1 gigabyte per month.
    — Neil J. Rubenking, PC Magazine, 30 Sep. 2026
  • The tadpoles — some descended from frogs in the San Jacinto Mountains and others from the San Bernardino Mountains — were separated into two groups because of their slight genetic differences.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of slight
Adjective
  • Now there seems to be a petty attempt to call out cheating when no cheating took place.
    — Matt Calkins OutKick, FOXNews.com, 22 Sep. 2026
  • Harness it wisely, and try not to waste it on petty arguments.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 22 Sep. 2026
Definition of petty
Adjective
  • The daily drawing of rangoli threshold designs with rice flour is thought to feed the many souls of birds, ants, and other tiny creatures.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Sep. 2026
  • From the factory, this Asus Vivobook 14 comes with a pretty tiny 256GB internal drive, but adding a 512GB external SSD gives you twice the additional storage space.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of tiny
Adjective
  • Some people even enjoy minute quantities as a recreational drug.
    — Mattha Busby, Rolling Stone, 19 Aug. 2026
  • There are so many models out there from so many manufacturers, with minute differences between them.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 25 June 2026
Definition of minute
Adjective
  • Cut to terra ferma, where the almighty rainstorm soaking the streets of Rome seems a comparatively trifling bit of weather.
    — Guy Lodge, Variety, 7 Sep. 2026
  • In less trifling hands, there’s no telling what these tools could do, are doing now.
    — CHRIS COLIN, Wired News, 18 May 2026
Definition of trifling
Adjective
  • Check-in and check-out are swift, valet has relatively little wait time, and the restaurant staff is accustomed to serving meals around performances at the Merrill Theater across the street.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 27 Sep. 2026
  • That might be a big casserole of stuffing, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, or any situation in which adding too little salt would be a hard deficit to overcome later on.
    — Chris Morocco, Bon Appetit Magazine, 26 Sep. 2026
Definition of little
Adjective
  • What begins as a trivial disagreement reaches new proportions regarding how far a lack of dialogue can drive people.
    — Rafa Sales Ross, Variety, 25 Sep. 2026
  • The book leans on research about decision fatigue—the idea that even trivial choices drain the mental capacity available for harder ones—to argue that the sheer volume of daily inputs, not just their content, has a cost.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of trivial
Adjective
  • Then, the pandemic reduced the schedule to 60 games and Eddie got a piddling 37%.
    — Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 3 Dec. 2020
  • Millions of additional claims are expected to stream in from around the country over the coming weeks, while hiring remains piddling.
    — Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020
Definition of piddling
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

pettifoggers
pettifogging
pettiness
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Cite this Entry

“Pettifogging.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pettifogging. Accessed 2 Oct. 2026.

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