NIGGLING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Niggling

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noun

niggling n. Finicky or pottering work; specif. (Fine Arts), Minute and very careful workmanship in drawing, painting, or the like, esp. when bestowed on unimportant detail.

verb

Niggle v. t. (past & past part. niggled; pres. part. niggling) To trifle with; to deceive; to mock. (Obs.)

Niggle v. t.

To use, spend, or do in a petty or trifling manner.

To elaborate excessively, as in art.

Niggle v. i.

To trifle or play. "Take heed, daughter, You niggle not with your conscience and religion."

To act or walk mincingly. (Prov. Eng.)

To fret and snarl about trifles. (Prov. Eng.)

(Chiefly Eng.) To move about restlessly or without result; to fidget.

To be finicky or excessively critical; to potter; esp., to work with excessive care for trifling details, as in painting.

adjective

Niggling adj.

Petty, trivial, or inconsequential.

Excessively demanding of time or attention; as, niggling little details.

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Etymology of 'Niggling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Niggling" Quotes from Famous Books

... at this new Moran in no little amazement. Where was the reckless, untamed girl of the previous night, who had sworn at him and denounced his niggling misgivings as ...

— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... test of a critic's quality. No task can well be harder than to take a poem, a stanza, or a line, to decide "Just here lies the strength, the charm; or just here the looseness, the defect." In any but the strongest hands these methods ensure mere niggling ingenuity, in which all appreciation of the broader purposes of the author—of Aristotle's 'universal'—disappears, while the critic reveals himself as an industrious pick-thank person concerned with matters of slight and secondary importance. But ...

— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch