Pettifogger vs Nitpicker - What's the difference?
pettifogger | nitpicker |
Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections.
* 1809 , , Knickerbocker's History of New York , ch. 39:
An unscrupulous or unethical lawyer, especially one of lesser skill.
* 1822 , , The Fortunes of Nigel , ch. 11:
* 1885 , The Bay State Monthly , Vol. 3, No. 6:
* 1926 June 28, "
As nouns the difference between pettifogger and nitpicker
is that pettifogger is someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections while nitpicker is one who nitpicks (finds fault in unimportant details).pettifogger
English
Noun
(en noun)- Hence the cunning measure of appointing as ambassador some political pettifogger skilled in delays, sophisms, and misapprehensions, and dexterous in the art of baffling argument.
- "An inn, or a tavern . . . these are places where greasy citizens take pipe and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most unhappy victims.
- . . .yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger , to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness. . . .
National Affairs: Blind Mans Huff," Time :
- "Donald Hughes, well known in Minneapolis as a conscienceless shyster, was placed in charge of the case. . . . Mr. Edgerton, a high class, reputable lawyer, was called in of counsel from another city to lend respectability to the crooked, unprincipled, blackmailing pettifogger , Hughes."