| 释义 |
pettifogger|ˈpɛtɪˌfɒgə(r)|
Also 6–7 pety-, 6–9 petty-fogger; 6 petifoger, 7 dial. -voguer, petty foger.
[Orig. sometimes as two words, petty fogger, and later often hyphened, petti-fogger, etc. First element petty a., second obscure: cf. fogger1 (but this was perhaps only a shortening of petty-fogger). The general sense seems to be the same as in pettifactor, of about the same age.]
1. A legal practitioner of inferior status, who gets up or conducts petty cases; esp. in an opprobrious sense, one who employs mean, sharp, cavilling practices; a ‘rascally attorney’.
1564–78W. Bullein Dial. agst. Pest. (1888) 19, I knowe theim verie well; they are two Pettifoggers in the Lawe. 1576,1577Pettie fogger [see fogger1 1]. 1584Leycesters Commw. (1641) 178 A most wicked Promoter, and wretched Petifoger, enriched himself by other mens ruines. 1592Nashe P. Penilesse (ed. 2) 6 Sergeant, Bencher, Counsailor, Atorney or petifoger. 1602Carew Cornwall 4 b, The worst conditioned and least cliented Petivoguers. 1612Dekker If it be not good Wks. 1873 III. 274 We must all turne petti⁓foggers, and instead of gilt rapiers, hang buckram bags at our girdles. 1645Milton Colast. Wks. 1851 IV. 365 A meer and arrant petti-fogger, who lately was so hardy, as to lay aside his buckram wallet, and make himself a fool in Print. 1746H. Walpole Corr. (1846) II. 142 He behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second. 1841Macaulay W. Hastings Ess. (1851) 623 The ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on the misery and terror of an immense community. 1873Longfellow Wayside Inn iii. Rhyme Sir Christopher 35 Morton of Merry Mount, That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn.
†b. Sometimes app. a professional name. Obs.
1688R. Holme Armoury iii. 63/2 Officers of the Palatinate Courts in Chester. Assizes..The Sollicitor. The Petty Fogers. Constable of the Castle [etc.]. 1721MS. Par. Reg. Campton, Beds., 5 Apr., Bur[ied] John Street of Shefford (Pettyfogger).
2. transf. A petty practitioner in any department; a tyro; an empiric, pretender.
1602Herring tr. Oberndoerffer's Anat. 41 Laying open the Packe and Fardle of these circumferaneous Iugglers, and pedling Pettifoggers in Physicke. 1670Eachard Cont. Clergy 22 He had much better commit himself to an approved⁓of cobler or tinker,..than to be only a disesteemed petti⁓fogger, or empyrick in divinity. 1711Puckle Club §215. 41 That such petty-foggers and retailers of news and politicks..should pretend to teach their rulers how to govern.
3. Nailmaking. See quot. and cf. fogger1 3.
1871A. S. Harvey in Gd. Words 610 A large proportion of the trade is in the hands of middlemen, called ‘foggers’,—those who truck being known as ‘pettifoggers’,—each of whom employs a certain number of nailmakers.
4. A local name of a fish, the rockling.
1880–4Day Fishes Gt. Brit. & Irel. I. 315 Pettifogger and baud are said to have been two local names in Cornwall for some species of Motella [Rockling].
5. Comb., as pettifogger-like adj.
1729Mrs. Delany in Life & Corr. 205 It is saucy, impertinent, unmannerly, and pettyfogger-like, to be making comparisons that are odious. |