Adjective : pettifogging details.    From Dictionary.com. 

This Mrs. Baxter called a pettifogging trick, and she pursued her parallel till the same terms were obviously indicated as appropriate to Quisanté's conduct.    From Wordnik.com.  [Quisanté] Reference

'GRACCHUS,' as the town called him, was a broken-down lawyer, who, as he got old, had prostituted the talents of his early days to the meanest kind of pettifogging and rascality.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy] Reference

Why do we call them pettifogging and dismiss them?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Titan] Reference

W. Penniman, are all pettifogging Dabblers in Iniquity and.    From Wordnik.com.  [John Adams diary 3, includes commonplace book entries, spring and summer 1759] Reference

It called forth the usual amount of legislative pettifogging.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862] Reference

No amount of pettifogging can hide these facts from the public.    From Wordnik.com.  [ANC Daily News Briefing] Reference

It was just as well not to have a pettifogging lawyer to deal with.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Slave of Silence] Reference

The details, the times and places, the pettifogging pettiness of it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Twin Moons] Reference

"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is --".    From Wordnik.com.  [Different Girls] Reference

All the silly pettifogging rules and regulations that hamper us all nowadays.    From Wordnik.com.  [4.50 From Paddington]

But what else do you expect from a Government infested with pettifogging lawyers?.    From Wordnik.com.  [UKIP Forced to Pay Back £367,000] Reference

Aristotle — to go sneaking on at this pitiful — pimping — pettifogging rate?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman] Reference

"I took it upon myself to ignore these pettifogging minutiae," he told author John McPhee.    From Wordnik.com.  [Builder Remapped Rivers Across West] Reference

Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was not even pettifogging.    From Wordnik.com.  [Les Miserables] Reference

Then I recall no pettifogging over proper channels, no "we can do only what the regime permits".    From Wordnik.com.  [Simon Jenkins: Dictators and Disasters] Reference

I see the evil Squirrel Army has stolen your sense of humor and replaced it with pettifogging literalism.    From Wordnik.com.  [Death...not just for murder mysteries any more!] Reference

‘With a gentleman’s daughter, sir,’ returned the sick man, ‘and the pettifogging spirit is the same.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nicholas Nickleby] Reference

In this house, this survival from another age, Maigret would have expected some old, dirty, pettifogging lawyer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Maigret and the Reluctant Witness]

It was a practical brain, a pettifogging brain, a brain fitted for routine work under the command of a superior.    From Wordnik.com.  [Three Guineas] Reference

If you realise that at its very best it is a pettifogging undemocratic bureaucracy, then what is any good about it?.    From Wordnik.com.  [John Terry’s sacking as England captain tells us something interesting...] Reference

Yet Mr. Sekhon is an example of how the FEC treats far too many candidates who run afoul of its pettifogging rules.    From Wordnik.com.  [Our Pettifogging FEC] Reference

Only a pettifogging fool would refuse to see the common thread and blather on about “ignoring the specificity.”.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » Victims of Communism Day] Reference

If MPs were subject to their own rules and pettifogging laws, then those laws would be more likely to be reasonable.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2009-05-01] Reference

The diocese is seeking the legal expenses squandered by the extravagant pettifogging of the diocesan lawyer, John Page.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Diocese of Niagara, Desperately Seeking Someone to Sue « Anglican Samizdat] Reference

The music industry says the same thing when its pettifogging clearance procedures and permission culture are criticized.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Public Domain Enclosing the Commons of the Mind] Reference

Baron; he is silent about his great-grandfather, the tinker, and his great-grandfather, the pettifogging country lawyer.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Librarian's Open Shelf] Reference

It might be instructive for all that court to do that, a real case study, rather than another pettifogging hypothetical.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » Judicial Protection for Property Rights Really Did Decline:] Reference

He condemns their “pettifogging” in similar terms to me and calls on other climate scientists to protest their behavior.    From Wordnik.com.  [Cunning IPCC Bureaucrats « Climate Audit] Reference

It is at best but a pettifogging, pickthank business to decompose actions into little personal motives, and explain heroism away.    From Wordnik.com.  [Virginibus Puerisque and other papers] Reference

Anyway, keeping future detainees away from Guantanamo should prevent them from coming within the reach of the justices 'pettifogging.    From Wordnik.com.  [Adiós, Guantánamo] Reference

‘— Rascally, pettifogging robbers!’ continued Mr. Pickwick, taking not the least notice of the threats that were addressed to him.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club] Reference

It was 1904 when the chagrined pedestrian made his way through the fatally designed "streets intersecting with a pettifogging consistency.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Mrs. Wharton in New York] Reference

A horde of pettifogging, barratrous, custom-seeking, money-making lawyers, is one of the greatest curses with which any state or community can be visited.    From Wordnik.com.  [An Essay on Professional Ethics Second Edition] Reference

It's much more likely to be some pettifogging lawyer's game -- some sneaking rogue that's got these fellow-rascals round him, with an idea of doing a little bit of blackmail.    From Wordnik.com.  [VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea] Reference