Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Pettifogger

Now here's a word for the times: pettifogger (or, pettifoggery, pettifogging, etc.). Having just spent a weekend in the city of fog (i.e., San Francisco), this bit of slang caught my attention. Before I looked it up, I tried to guess what it might mean...
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... My guess was it meant something along the line of chicanery (a word I might just have to feature next week). According to the Etymology Online entry for pettifogger, I was at least in the neighborhood:

pettifogger (n): 1560s, from petty; the second element possibly from obsolete Dutch focker, from Flemish focken "to cheat," or from cognate Middle English fugger, from Fugger the renowned family of merchants and financiers of 15c.-16c. Augsburg. In German, Flemish and Dutch, the name became a word for "monopolist, rich man, usurer."

A 'petty Fugger' would mean one who on a small scale practices the dishonourable devices for gain popularly attributed to great financiers; it seems possible that the phrase 'petty fogger of the law,' applied in this sense to some notorious person, may have caught the popular fancy. [OED first edition, in a rare burst of pure speculation]

However, OED also calls attention to pettifactor "legal agent who undertakes small cases" (1580s), which, though attested slightly later, might be the source of this. Related: Pettifoggery.

My old reliable Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition) gives first use of pettifogger at 1576 (well, who's quibbling over a few years, here) and defines it thus:

1. a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable: shyster. 2. one given to quibbling over trifles.

Shyster pretty much rubs elbows with chicanery, don'tcha think? Stay tuned for next week, when I tackle the etymology of chicanery...

Pettifoggers? Hardly.
[From Wikimedia: "The Curse of California." Tinted lithograph. This two-page illustration portrays the powerful railroad monopoly as an octopus, with its many tentacles controlling such financial interests as the elite of Nob Hill, farmers, lumber interests, shipping, fruit growers, stage lines, mining, and the wine industry. By George Frederick Keller - The Wasp, August 19, 1882, vol. 9. No. 316, pp. 520-521.Image taken from California History (Spring 1991), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67545687]