With so much at stake, both teams were hesitant and cagey early on, the game with littered with late tackles and niggly fouls.
Source: wiktionary
Niggly
//ˈnɪɡ(ə)li//
Synonyms for "niggly" (8 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (2)
Adjective(2 words)
Strong matches (2)
Related words (4)
Adjective(4 words)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
derived from
1 entriesrelated to
4 entriesSample sentences
4 total sentences available.
They'd argue a lot, about little niggly things — and they had never been like that.
Source: wiktionary
You soon discover there isn't time (nor is there any need) to put in the niggly details. The essence of the pose is its attitude or action and a hint of the model.
Source: wiktionary
Now things are less confrontational but just as niggly. The Spanish examine drivers' papers with elaborate care, causing huge traffic jams
Source: wiktionary
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.