or nig, verb. (old).—1. See quots., GREENS and RIDE. Also NIGGLING, subs. = copulation.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (1814), p. 66. To NYGLE, to have to do with a woman carnally.
1608. DEKKER, Lanthorne and Candlelight [GROSART, Works (1886), iii., 203]. If we NIGGLE, or mill a bowsing Ken.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, 39 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. NIGLING, company keeping with a woman: this word is not used now, but wapping, and thereof comes the name wapping morts Whoores.
1612. DEKKER, ‘Bing out, bien Morts,’ v. [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 12].
| And wapping Dell that NIGGLES well, | |
| and takes loure for her hire. |
1641. R. BROME, A Joviall Crew [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 25].
| The Autum-Mort finds better sport | |
| In bowsing then in NIGLING. |
2. (common).—To trifle. Also NIGGLING = trifling.—GROSE (1785).
1632. MASSINGER, The Emperor of the East, v., 3.
| Theod. Take heed, Daughter, | |
| You NIGGLE not with your Conscience. |
3. (artists’).—To attend excessively to detail; to work on a small scale, with a small brush, to a small purpose.
1883. W. BLACK, Yolande, ch. xlix. Do you think Mr. Meteyard could get that portrait of you finished off to-day? Bless my soul, it wasn’t to have been a portrait at all!—it was only to have been a sketch. And he has kept on NIGGLING and NIGGLING away at it—why?
