nigglyadj.

1840 W. Harcourt Let. in A. G. Gardiner Life W. Harcourt (1923) I. ii. 24 I think his trees niggly as you would say, and he teaches an odd doctrine about trees.

1862 C. C. Robinson Dial. Leeds & Neighbourhood 40 Ah doant want to live soa as fowks could cawal us niggly.

1898 B. Kirkby Lakeland Words 107 He was as niggly ower a penny as many a yan is ower a pund.

1924 W. J. Locke Coming of Amos xii. 158 It's a bit niggly—you poor fellows daren't escape it; but still..there's breadth and intelligence—you'd better come over to us.

1952 M. Tripp Faith is Windsock iii. 43 Well, aren't you a niggly old bastard?

1967 E. Short Embroidery & Fabric Collage iv. 106 Care must be taken to avoid niggly detail and a temptation to imitate a pencil line or brush stroke exactly.

1973 A. Ross Dunfermline Affair 65 ‘What about..going to get the bloody stuff?’ Thomson said. He was niggly, and showed it.

1993 Mother & Baby Feb. 39/1 At about 30 weeks, I started to have niggly pains.

1982 Christian Sci. Monitor (Nexis) 20 Sept. 21 All the niggliness of constructing tiny sailing ships..and then coaxing them into bottles strikes me as being so skillful as to be almost supernatural.

2000 Daily News (New Plymouth, N.Z.) (Nexis) 26 Aug. 19 Perhaps I would not worry about that smallmindedness so much, had I not had to live and see so much that did not seem to fit that niggliness.