NIGGLING Synonyms: 101 Similar and Opposite Words

niggling 1 of 2

adjective

ˈni-g(ə-)liŋ

Definition of niggling

as in slight

so small or unimportant as to warrant little or no attention only niggling differences between the original Broadway musical and the film version that followed

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

niggling

2 of 2

verb

present participle of niggle

as in complaining

to make often peevish criticisms or objections about matters that are minor, unimportant, or irrelevant you know it drives me crazy when you niggle like that

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of niggling

Adjective

As the kids grow up and move out, and as your space starts feeling like a little too much upkeep, a niggling thought about downsizing may start to grow louder. — Wendy Rose Gould, Martha Stewart, 7 July 2026 Their season has been busy, grumpy and overstretched, and pressure has been a niggling, constant companion, particularly at home, but their opponents on Sunday were hapless, soft in defence and muddled in their thinking. — George Caulkin, New York Times, 18 May 2026 The sellers got slightly more than their asking price without any niggling 11th-hour negotiations. — Kim Velsey, Curbed, 29 Aug. 2024 And yet, a niggling sense of loss remains after the season 5 finale; many of Diana’s most important moments and relationships are relegated to a handful of scenes. — Lauren Puckett-Pope, ELLE, 10 Nov. 2022

Verb

Today the danger is swarms of malevolent AI agents, the CEOs in question run frontier labs, and legal niggling risks holding up an urgent safety conversation. — Liz Hoffman, semafor.com, 17 Sep. 2026 For Neal, there was always a niggling concern that fans of the pod wouldn’t return to the series, but thankfully this couldn’t have been further from the eventual truth. — Max Goldbart, Deadline, 11 Aug. 2026 The new calculation, made at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, could help solve a niggling mystery about this particle’s mass. — Clara Moskowitz, Scientific American, 10 Apr. 2026 Henry dismisses Yasmin but can’t shake the niggling feeling that his wife isn’t entirely wrong. — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 16 Feb. 2026 There are niggling, nagging, familiar concerns, like not taking chances, like being hit on the counter, but our section erupts when Willock scores and then erupts again when his goal is ruled out. — George Caulkin, New York Times, 11 Feb. 2026 The hard part of getting cars to drive themselves is the last niggling 1 percent of reliability. — IEEE Spectrum, 18 Oct. 2016

Recent Examples of Synonyms for niggling

Adjective

Valadao, a Republican from Hanford, has won the seat in six of the last seven elections despite the district’s slight Democratic tilt.

— Mathew Miranda, Sacbee.com, 7 Oct. 2026
In their paper from September, Minzer and his colleagues proved a slight variant of Khot’s second conjecture that has nearly the same consequences.

— Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 7 Oct. 2026

Definition of slight

Verb

But Chee Meng kept complaining about his shirts being misplaced, and Shawn knew that the man was still slipping out, either to look for work or for other purposes.

— Rachel Heng, New Yorker, 4 Oct. 2026
Staff were complaining about the connection in February, Wired reported, and Transformer reported that employees confronted Lehane in a meeting in May, pushing the company to explain its relationship with LTF.

— Garrison Lovely, semafor.com, 2 Oct. 2026

Definition of complaining

Adjective

Not a crisis — yet The negative feedback loop becomes more dangerous when nominal economic growth falls to low levels, causing debt relative to the size of the economy to rise persistently, Reese said.

— Lee Ying Shan, CNBC, 5 Oct. 2026
The Iran war, forest fires and thunderstorms are all talking points this week as F1 gears up for a Bahrain GP held 3,750 miles (6,000 kilometers) away from its nominal host nation.

— ABC News, ABC News, 30 Sep. 2026

Definition of nominal

Verb

Joy Randolph and John Early, as the two Afterlife Coordinators, have a quibbling charisma, but the movie should have done more with all its possible versions of paradise, figuring out how to use them comedically instead of just as easy punchlines.

— Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 10 Sep. 2025
When the murder of 100,000 people, many of them women and children, is mentioned or denounced, or when someone dares to use terms such as genocide, ethnocide, ethnic cleansing or similar, most people choose to take issue with the characterization, quibbling over semantics.

— Uriel Kon September 2, Literary Hub, 2 Sep. 2025

Definition of quibbling

Adjective

Stanley’s co-defendant, unsuccessful county commissioner candidate and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus driver Heather Morrow, was found guilty of the petty offenses and the misdemeanor assault charge.

— Julia Coin, Charlotte Observer, 7 Oct. 2026
Letts makes the most of his brief screen time as a manipulator whose petty genius lies in creating an artificial scarcity for his affections.

— Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 1 Oct. 2026

Definition of petty

Verb

At the same time, Plog placed a phone call to a relative and can be heard moaning and screaming in pain.

— Rosalio Ahumada, Sacbee.com, 18 Sep. 2026
Hall wrote in his report that Hamilton lay down in the backseat of the police vehicle, moaning and not responding, prompting first responders to give him Narcan.

— Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 14 Aug. 2026