English
niggle
Niggle may come from Norwegian nigla ‘to be stingy, to busy oneself with trifles’.
- Norwegianmodernnigla‘to be stingy, to busy oneself with trifles’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1621niggle
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Norwegianmodernnigla‘to be stingy, to busy oneself with trifles’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1621niggle
Earliest quotation: c. 1621, John Fletcher, The Pilgrim: “I shall so feed your fierce vexation , And…”
first attested First attested in 1599 (as stated in the etymology)
The story
First attested in 1599. Origin uncertain, but likely borrowed from dialectal Norwegian nigla (‘to be stingy, to busy oneself with trifles’), ultimately from Old Norse hnøggr (‘stingy; miserly’), related to Old English hnēaw (‘stingy; niggardly’).uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *kneh₂- ‘to scrape, scratch, rub’
Today it means
noun A minor complaint or problem.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Norwegian nigla / niggle