sniggling

sniggling is the present participle and gerund of sniggle.

Meaning of sniggle

sniggle (third-person singular simple present sniggles, present participle sniggling, simple past and past participle sniggled)

(intransitive) To chortle or chuckle; snicker.
- Ay! you see you'll laugh at the bare thought on it — and I'll be bound th' minister, though he's not a laughing man, would ha' sniggled at th' notion of falling in love wi' the child.1864, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis

sniggle (third-person singular simple present sniggles, present participle sniggling, simple past and past participle sniggled)

(intransitive) To fish for eels by thrusting a baited needle or hook into their dens.
- But rampant poaching (the correct term for catching a grown-up eel with bait is to “sniggle”, though elvers are caught with something more like a giant sieve) is now prompting authorities to crack down well in advance of next year’s season.[2012 December 1, “Transparent gold”, in The Economist, →ISSN
(transitive) To catch by this means.
(figuratively, transitive) To ensnare.

sniggle (third-person singular simple present sniggles, present participle sniggling, simple past and past participle sniggled)

sniggling (plural snigglings)

(rare) A chuckle; a snicker.
- How little Tim and Jim stood hiding behind doors, peeping out surreptitiously with gigglings and snigglings indescribable, whilst the august visitor laboriously ascended the narrow and tortuous “nursery staircase,” has passed into the annals […]1887, Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron, Pure Gold, page 257
- The loud whispers and devious snigglings were still ringing in her ears, long after they had been well on their way. She hadn't bothered to make friends with any of them, in that her way of living wasn't what they might call respectful; […]1984, Freddie O. Durant, The Donaldson Mansion, page 151

plural	snigglings

What does sniggling mean?: Sniggling means a chuckle; a snicker.
What is sniggling the present participle and gerund of?: Sniggling is the present participle and gerund of sniggle.
What part of speech is sniggling?: Sniggling is a noun.
What is the plural of sniggling?: The plural of sniggling is snigglings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sniggling (page history and authors); sniggle (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: “sniggling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sniggling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.