pettifogulize

Updated: May 14, 2025

So far from seeking to "pettifogulize" i.e., to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost every body's words, an unintentional opening left for double interpretations.

Thomas De Quincey - Autobiographical Sketches