naggle /ˈnæɡ.əl/verb 7noun 1forms 3 verb7 •To niggle; to irritate or bother continually or repeatedly.Nothing obscene, for goodness sake, but just at the bare threshold of audibility, so that it niggles and naggles and bothers. — 1969 •To nag, carp, or quarrel.A child should be joyous, but how, if he be continually naggled at, can he be? — 1873 •To harass or scold.I 'll go for my paw if folks naggle me ; an' nobody shall tech me ! — 1899 •To make many minor adjustments to; to fiddle with.You can niggle and naggle at any set of documents and always imply that the set you might have put together would have been ever so much better. — 1974 •To haggle; to negotiate argumentatively.Ye see the wives naggle aboot tripe and sheep heeds , Or washing their greens at a fountain, Where the young Nuns used to be telling their beads, And had nowt but thor sins to be countin' — 1889 •To claw or dig away."Water! —water!" she murmured as though in prayer to it , kneeling by the hole she had naggled in the ice , dabbling her finger in the icy slush that scarce let the water through. — 1899 •(no longer used) To toss the head or cause to toss the head.On the Pieces last Sunday they made such a rout, i That the scurrilous author would soon be found out, Then they naggled their heads, while their tails flew about. — 1780 noun1 •A minor irritant.So they all revolved round their trailing orbits in the sand, revolved round the naggles in their brains; all, except the sergeant. — 1948 formsnaggled · naggling · naggles
