Search the Dictionary

A petty falling out; a tiff; a quarrel; offense. Fielding.

A kind of cherry. See Morello. Great morel, the deadly nightshade. -- Petty morel, the black nightshade. See Nightshade.

a macrophylla) with coarse leaves and yellow tubular flowers with a spreading border. -- Petty mullein, the cowslip. Dr. Prior.

efends; stronghold; place or means of defense; munition; assistance. "Other muniments and petty helps." Shak.

To tease in a petty way; to scold habitually; to annoy; to fret pertinaciously. [Colloq.] "She never nagged." J. Ingelow.

Nautical skill or experience. [Obs.] ir W. Petty.

he lower part. -- Needle furze (Bot.), a prickly leguminous plant of Western Europe; the petty whin (Genista Anglica). -- Needle gun, a firearm loaded at the breech with a cartridge carrying its own fulminate, which is exploded by driving a slender needle, or pin, into it. -- Needle loom (Weaving), a loom in which t…

A pickpocket; a young or petty thief. [Old Cant]

A small or petty work.

private concern or interest. Let the general trumpet blow his blast, Particularities and petty sounds To cease! Shak .

A slight trespass or offense; a petty crime or fault. Sir W. Scott.

ak; hence, to eat. [The hen] went pecking by his side. Dryden. To peck at, to attack with petty and repeated blows; to carp at; to nag; to tease.

Petty; insignificant. "The miserable remains of a peddling commerce." Burke.

Finical or fussy; full of petty details. [Colloq.]

To trouble; to disturb; to annoy; to harass with petty vexations. We are pestered with mice and rats. Dr. H. More. A multitude of scribblers daily pester the world. Dryden.

lamb; a pet theory. Some young lady's pet curate. F. Harrison. Pet cock. Etym: [Perh. for petty cock.] (Mach.) A little faucet in a water pipe or pump, to let air out, or at the end of a steam cylinder, to drain it.

Small; little; insignificant; mean; -- Same as Petty. [Obs., except in legal language.] By what small, petit hints does the mind catch hold of and recover a vanishing notion. South. Petit constable, an inferior civil officer, subordinate to the high constable. -- Petit jury, a jury of twelve men, impaneled to try caus…

See Pettychaps.

To do a petty business as a lawyer; also, to do law business in a petty or tricky way. "He takes no money, but pettifogs gratis." S. Butler.

A lawyer who deals in petty cases; an attorney whose methods are mean and tricky; an inferior lawyer. A pettifogger was lord chancellor. Macaulay.