Forms: 7 chiquanerey, -ery, chicanrey, chicannery, 7–8 chicanry, 7– chicanery. [a. F. chicanerie, in Littré the earliest exemplified member of the group, implying however the existence of the vb. chicaner and sb. chicaneur as its source: see -ERY. Formerly more completely anglicized as chi·canry.]
1. Legal trickery, pettifogging, abuse of legal forms; the use of subterfuge and trickery in debate or action; quibbling, sophistry, trickery.
a. 1613. Overbury, Observ. State France (1856), 241. All this chiquanerey, as they call it, is brought into France from Rome.
1665. Evelyn, Lett. Sir P. Wyche, 20 June. We have hardly any words that do so fully expresse the French clinquant, naiveté … chicaneries.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, II. (1692), 151. I shall not advise this Honourable House to use any Chiquancery, or Pettifoggery with this great Representation of the Kingdom.
1682. Burnet, Rights Princes, Pref. 51. To do it with all the Tricks and Chicanery possible.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Chicanry, is a trickish and guileful Practice of the Law.
1708. Ozell, Boileau’s Lutrin, V. (1730), 53. That foul Monster, void of Ears and Eyes, Call’d Chicanry.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), IV. ii. 14. It was … by the chicanery of the lawyers … carried against him.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist., II. xii. The period of lord Danby’s administration … was full of chicanery and dissimulation on the King’s side.
1876. Green, Short Hist., viii. § 8. Forty days wasted in useless chicanery.
b. as a personal quality.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., let. 26 June. He carried home with him all the knavish chicanery of the lowest pettifogger.
1832. Lander, Adv. Niger, III. xvi. 256. The artifice, chicanery and low cunning of a crafty and corrupt mind.
2. (with pl.) A dishonest artifice of law; a sophistry, quibble, subterfuge, trick.
1688. Answ. Talon’s Plea, 23. Pitifull Chicanneries and tricks of the Law.
1758. Jortin, Erasm., I. 103. These letters … full of chicaneries about trifles.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 227. Impatient of such chicaneries, Flaminius took the law into his own hands.
