Word.ws English Dictionary

niggliest

niggliest is the superlative form of niggly.

Meaning of niggly

Adjective

niggly (comparative more niggly, superlative most niggly)

  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.2024 August 29, Alex Mills, “Larne headed for Conference League group stages as Andy Ryan hat-trick secures historic Play-Off joy”, in Belfast Telegraph
  2. Trivial, insignificant
    • They'd argue a lot, about little niggly things — and they had never been like that.2003, Michael Morpurgo, Kensuke's Kingdom, page 5
  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 jams2003, Michael Palin, Sahara, page 16

Questions about niggliest

What is niggliest the superlative form of?
Niggliest is the superlative form of niggly.

Words near niggliest in the dictionary

  1. nigglers
  2. niggles
  3. nigglesome
  4. nigglet
  5. nigglets
  6. niggliest
  7. niggliite
  8. niggliness
  9. niggling
  10. nigglingly
  11. nigglings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: niggliest (page history and authors); niggly (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.

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