What does "niggly" mean?

Bad-tempered, especially about trivial details.

What is a synonym for "niggly"?

Common synonyms include: fastidious, demanding, exacting, finicky, lily-handed, nitty.

//ˈnɪɡ(ə)li// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Adjective

1
Bad-tempered, especially about trivial details.
"With so much at stake, both teams were hesitant and cagey early on, the game with littered with late tackles and niggly fouls."
2
Trivial, insignificant
"They'd argue a lot, about little niggly things — and they had never been like that."
3
Pernickety, paying too much attention to small details.
"Now things are less confrontational but just as niggly. The Spanish examine drivers' papers with elaborate care, causing huge traffic jams"

"With so much at stake, both teams were hesitant and cagey early on, the game with littered with late tackles and niggly fouls."

From niggle + -y.

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