?1755 T. Legg Low-life (ed. 2) 29 Poor labouring Men..are obliged to get up, put on Part of their Cloaths and go a Nigiting, i.e. fetching Midwives, Nurses and Gossips.

a1760 W. Arderon Local Words in MS Add. 27966 f. 237 Nigeting, to call women to one in Labour.

1960 A. O. D. Claxton Suffolk Dial. 20th Cent. (ed. 2) 56 An old midwife said,..‘Oi've bin out a-nidgettin' on many a night as black as black hogs.’

1995 A. Wilson Making of Man-midwifery iii. 25 There fell upon her husband..the duty of what in East Anglia was known as ‘nidgeting’: that is, going about from house to house to summon the midwife and the other women to the birth.

1804 Ann. Agric. 42 196 (table) Nidgetting (horse-hoeing) – £0 6 0.

1870 Jrnl. Royal Agric. Soc. Eng. 6 349 The first nidgetting is generally done with two horses, to get the soil deeply moved, afterwards one horse will suffice.

1881 Jrnl. Bath & West of Eng. Soc. 13 218 (table) Keeping land clean round hills £0 7 0. Nidgetting and harrowing £1 15 0.

1909 Pall Mall Mag. Dec. 884/1 Nidgetting, he discovered, was the same as hoeing.

1927 J. Ross-Mackenzie Standard Man. Brewing & Malting iv. 93 There are outlays for digging, dressing..‘nidgetting’, etc.

1982 R. Filmer Hops & Hop Picking ii. 23 Digging, hoeing and nidgeting often had to be done as many as eight times a season.

2011 C. Cordle Out of Hay & into Hops Index 179/2 Shimming/nidgeting.