Word.ws English Dictionary

piggle

piggle noun: a long-handled fork for mixing or digging.

Noun

piggle (plural piggles)

  1. (rare) A long-handled fork for mixing or digging.
    • A heap of it is then placed upon an inclined platform, under a small fall of water, and repeatedly stirred with a piggle and shovel […]1859, Murray's Handbook for Devon and Cornwall, page 244

Verb

piggle (third-person singular simple present piggles, present participle piggling, simple past and past participle piggled)

  1. (transitive) To dig or uproot; to scrape.
    • I took my revenge on th' round-house, for I piggled all th' plaster off o' the walls that I could […]1841, Charles Hooton, Colin Clink, page 140
  2. (intransitive) To toy or fiddle.
    • Then all nature was presently converted into an object for microscopic study, so that everything, whether near or far, must be piggled at and made clear to the utmost limit of human power.1876, Alfred Dawson, English Landscape Art, in its Position and Prospects, page 16
    • Banford, at the other end of the table, said not a word, but piggled with the sardine on her plate.1922, D.H. Lawrence, The Fox, page 48
  3. To cause to worry, to make uncomfortable; niggle.
    • BUDD. Get up yourself, and shut up, too! You have piggled me enough, you old smooty-snoot!1899, David Belasco, Naughty Anthony
  4. To worry about minor points.
    • But of what value is all that piggling, niggling, — you call the little thing piggling, niggling?1836, Joanna Baillee, The Alienated Manor: A Comedy

Forms of piggle

Noun
pluralpiggles
Verb
third-person singular presentpiggles
present participlepiggling
past participlepiggled
pastpiggled

Origin of piggle

Uncertain. Attested since the nineteenth century. Compare niggle, fiddle.

Questions about piggle

What does piggle mean?
Piggle means a long-handled fork for mixing or digging.
What part of speech is piggle?
Piggle can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of piggle?
The plural of piggle is piggles.

Words near piggle in the dictionary

  1. piggins
  2. piggish
  3. piggishly
  4. piggishness
  5. piggishnesses
  6. piggle
  7. piggled
  8. piggles
  9. piggling
  10. Piggott
  11. Piggotts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: piggle (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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