Niggling

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
A small irritating sensation.
"Occasionally a paranoia or slight insecurity that is not based on reality will bring nigglings of that bad time."

Verb

1
present participle and gerund of niggle form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1
Petty
"My dear Hooker, I am getting very much amused by my tendrils, it is just the sort of niggling work which suits me, and takes up no time and rather rests me whilst writing."
2
Irritating.
"Sellafield hasn’t suffered an accident of equivalent scale since the 1957 fire, but the niggling fear that some radioactivity is leaking out of the facility in some fashion has never entirely vanished"

Adjective

1
(informal) small and of little importance wordnet

Synonyms

adverse criticism advertent agog alert all ears all eyes

Example

"I'm fed up with your constant niggling, Mary."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.