nidderling

nidderling noun: someone who is weak and cowardly.

Noun

nidderling (plural nidderlings)

(archaic) Someone who is weak and cowardly.
- There they meet young men who have the true feeling for the sex, and call that man churl and nidderling and pitiful sneak and cur, who would suffer any young woman whom he loves to work if he could order otherwise.1889, Walter Besant, To Call Her Mine, page 295
- As we began to climb the moor, Sir Thomas motioned me with his hand to ride abreast of him, and to make ready my weapons, which I was not loth to do, for I am no nidderling to be afraid of powder.1896, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Grey Man, page 25

nidderling (comparative more nidderling, superlative most nidderling)

(archaic) Unmanly.
- ... and dismissing him with a half sullen, half courteous "Goot nicht," disappeared, before Philip had half got to the end of his catalogue of mental execrations, on the "hog of a German brute, that set no more by the life and limb of a born gentleman, than o' one of his own outlandish, nidderling...1839, The wizard of Windshaw, page 61
- He was starting to get frustrated now, me keeping him from the Long Orbit with this nidderling triviality.1992, Eluki Bes Shahar, Darktraders, →ISBN, page 203

Corruption of niddering.

What does nidderling mean?: Nidderling means someone who is weak and cowardly.
What part of speech is nidderling?: Nidderling can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of nidderling?: The plural of nidderling is nidderlings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: nidderling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “nidderling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nidderling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.