niggle
pronunciation
How to pronounce niggle in British English:
UK [ˈnɪgl]
How to pronounce niggle in American English:
US [ˈnɪɡəl]
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- Verb:
- worry unnecessarily or excessively
- argue over petty things
Word Origin
- niggle (v.)
- 1590s (implied in niggling), possibly from a Scandinavian source (compare Norwegian dialectal nigla "be busy with trifles"), perhaps related to source of niggard. Related: Niggled; niggling; niggler.
Example
- 1. I just have one small niggle about this book .
- 2. I don 't see why they should niggle over paying a few pounds into the fund . They 're rich enough .
- 3. What started as a niggle in an arcane corner of the us mortgage market has escalated into what looks ever more like a global liquidity and credit crunch .
- 4. A woman 's contamination is not how she is vanity or corruption , how she is niggle , but is that how she is immoral .
- 5. The first niggle is that most workers lost their state-provided health care and education almost a decade ago .