Pronounced: PAH-guh-nip, noun
Notes: I don’t know this word, but people with certain experiences may
Yesterday’s word
The word pettifogger is
- a petty, unscrupulous lawyer
- one who quibbles over trivial matters
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
Background / Comments
I ran across our word in some English author – probably Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie. I knew that it referred to a kind of lawyer, and was not complimentary. I think I imagined it to be a combination of the two definitions – a lawyer who delayed things by quibbling over trivial matters. Our word is a combination of petty (small) and fogger, which is thought to be a reference to the Fuggers, who were a Bavarian family of merchants in the 1400s and 1500s.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 