pettifoggery
nounUK /ˈpɛti.fɒɡ.ə.ɹi/
Etymology From pettifogger + -ery.
1
The actions of a pettifogger; a trivial quarrel.
- He was capable of using lawyerly rhetoric, at times, to the brink of pettifoggery.
- Yet even Harlan was to prove capable of grievous pettifoggery on the racial issue.2011, Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality, Knopf Doubleday (2011), p. 82
2 more examples
- [Frankfurter's reasoning in Beauharnais v. Illinois] struck Black and the other three Roosevelt appointees who joined his dissent as noxious pettifoggery[.]2011, Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality, Knopf Doubleday (2011), p. 601
- The idea that a minor bureaucratic restructuring could have made any difference in the time of Trump reflected how immune bureaucratic pettifoggery is to reality.2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 317: