Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Nagging |
NaggingAdjective1. Continually complaining or faultfinding; "a shrewish wife"; "nagging parents". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "nagging" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
Synonym: NaggingSynonym: shrewish (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Nagging |
| English words defined with "nagging": carping, caviling ♦ dominated ♦ endlessly ♦ henpecked ♦ interminably ♦ nitpicking ♦ pettifogging ♦ quibbling ♦ shrew, shrewishness ♦ termagant. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "nagging": Nag, Nagging ♦ to a first approximation. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | If nagging were an Olympic sport, my Aunt Voula would win a gold medal! (My Big Fat Greek Wedding; writing credit: Nia Vardalos) I've had this nagging feeling all day that I'm forgetting something. (Wings; writing credit: Ere Kokkonen) I can't stand the constant nagging. I'm leaving you, Jerry. (The Majestic; writing credit: Michael Sloane) My so-called lawyer is always nagging Dr. Chilton for better accommodations. (Red Dragon; writing credit: Ted Tally) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Our Nagging Wives (1930) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | As the pressures for more service grow and the enthusiasm for providing it declines, the nagging questions about effectiveness of care will intensify. (references) | |
Business | The recent history of China's healthcare delivery system is replete with great advances and nagging challenges. (references) | |
Economic History | Peru | Nagging economic problems left over from the military government persisted, worsened by an occurrence of the "El Nio" weather phenomenon in 1982-83, which caused widespread flooding in some parts of the country, severe droughts in others, and decimated the schools of ocean fish that are one of the country's major resources. (references) |
Political Economy | Philippines | A larger armed separatist movement in central Mindanao and a nagging communist insurgency in remote areas throughout the country round out the government's major security headaches. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Nagging" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 58.49% of the time. "Nagging" is used about 159 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 58.49% | 93 | 34,067 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 32.08% | 51 | 47,619 |
| Noun (singular) | 8.81% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.63% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 159 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "nagging": a nagging doubt ♦ nagging pain ♦ shrewish nagging vixenish. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
nagging | 17 |
nagging wife | 13 |
cough nagging | 7 |
nagging woman | 2 |
nagging twin yang ying | 2 |
nagging stop | 2 |
nagging no | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "nagging"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | ngacmim (banter, bothering, chaff, dig, excitation, excitement, harassment, impulse, irritation, jesting, molestation, provocation, raillery, rally, rub, teasing), qaravitje (cavil, petulance, petulancy, snivel, whimper), qaraman (Carper, crier, crybaby, grouser, grumbler, maudlin, peevish, pettish, plaintive, querulous, weeper), i bezdisur (officious), gërnjar (bitchy, carping, finical, finicking, finicky, finikin, fussy, grouch, grouchy, grouse, grouser, grumbler, nag, nagger, peevish, pettish, petulant, quarrelsome, shrewish, termagant, wrangler), e qepur (seam), ankim (cavil, complaint, grievance, peeve, pet, whine). (various references) | |
Arabic | متذمر (complaining, grouchy, grumbly), عنيد (adamant, asinine, contrary, coriaceous, die hard, dogged, dour, fractious, hardheaded, headstrong, heady, implacable, incorrigible, inelastic, inexorable, inflexible, intractable, intransigent, inveterate, irreconcilable, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, opinionated, ornery, peevish, persevering, pertinacious, perverse, piggish, pigheaded, refractory, rigid, scabrous, scratchy, self willed, stiff, stiff necked, stout, stubborn, sullen, tenacious, thwart, uncompromising, unruly, unwilling, unyielding, wilful, willful, wrongheaded). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | заядлив (argumentative, bellicose, captious, carping, combative, contradictious, contradictory, currish, doggish, mordant, peevish, provoking, spleenful, troublesome, vixenish). (various references) | |
Chinese | " 叨 (Babbled, Babbling, Nagged). (various references) | |
Czech | obtížný (difficile, difficult, dodgy, hard, heavy, onerous, painful, tricky, troublesome), obtìžující, hlodavý, hádavý (quarrelsome). (various references) | |
French | harcelant. (various references) | |
German | keifend (jangling), gezeter (clamor, clamour), gekeife. (various references) | |
Greek | κρεβατομουρμούρα, γκρίνια (fault finding, gripe, grizzling, grouchiness, moan, querulousness, whimpering), μάλωμα (bawling, scuffle, wigging). (various references) | |
Hungarian | zsémbelés (grumbling, moan), zsörtölődő (bad-tempered, crabby, cross-grained, grouchy, gruff, grumbler, rambunctious), mindenbe belekötő, idegekre menő, civódós, akadékoskodó (captious, martinetish, martinettish, niggling, pedantic, to be interfering), ócsárló (abuser, carping, depreciative, depreciatory, disparager, disparaging, disparagingly). (various references) | |
Indonesian | rengekan (whimper), comel (grumbling). (various references) | |
Italian | tormentoso (labored, laboured, tormenting), rimprovero (animadversion, correction, rap, rebuke, reprimand, reproach, reproof, scolding, taunt, twit, upbraiding), meticoloso (captious, carping, correct, fastidious, finickly, fussy, meticulous, particular, pedantic, punctilious, scrupulous), fastidioso (annoying, bothering, bothersome, fastidious, inconvenient, maddening, pesky, tiresome, troublesome), che rimbrotta di continuo, che mugugna. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | がぶりと噛み付く (clattering, crowd of people talking, griping, look like, savor of, sinking one's teeth into, smack of, sound like, toad), 小喧しい (fault-finding), 口煩さい (overly talkative), 口喧しい (gossipy, talkative). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | がみがみ (griping), くちうるさい (overly talkative), くちやかましい (gossipy, talkative), "やかましい (fault-finding). (various references) | |
Korean | "소리함. (various references) | |
Manx | troiddey (altercate, altercation, berate, bicker, chide, chiding, dress down, dressing down, jaw, jaw scolding, mud-slinging, nag, objurgate, objurgation, quarrel, quarrelling, rate, row; squabbling, scold, scolding, set to, squabble, telling off, wigging), sheer-hroiddey. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | aggingnay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | resmungão (croaker, cross-patch, grouch, grown, grume, mumbling, snappish, snappy), incómodo (ailment, annoyance, annoying, awkward, bumbling, cumbersome, cumbrous, discomfort, dreadful, heavy-laden, importune, incommodious, inconvenience, inconvertible, intrusive, left-hander, meddler, muff, nuisance, pesky, plaguy, ragtime, rush, shrill, thorn, tiresome, trouble, troublesome, uncomfortable, unhandy, untoward, unwelcome, vexatious, vexing, worrisome), enervante (darned, provocative, provoking). (various references) | |
Romanian | sâcâialã (teasing), cicãlitor (annoying, caviller, fault finding, grumbler, naggy, pestiferous, quarrelsome). (various references) | |
Russian | ворчливый (capernoited, grouchy, grumpy, murmurous, querulous, snarly), ноющий (whiny), неотвязный (persistent), попреки. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | zanovetanje, zakeranje (faultfinding), koji zakera, džandrljiv. (various references) | |
Spanish | nada tranquilo, regañón (nag, nagger, shrewish), quejas (niggling, wailing), persistente (continuous, hardy, lingering, long-lived, niggling, persistent, persisting), marimandón, importunar (badger, importune, molest, pester, solicit, tease, trouble), criticón (captious, carper, carping, critic, faultfinder, faultfinding, nagger), críticas, continuo (abiding, chronic, constant, continual, continuous, direct, endless, lasting, non-stop, permanent, perpetual, persistent, rolling, steady, sustained, unbroken, unceasing, uninterrupted). (various references) | |
Swedish | gnat (carping, cavilling, gripe). (various references) | |
Thai | ซึ่งนานและยากกว่าจะรักษาหาย. (various references) | |
Ukranian | набридливий (annoying, bothersome, pesky, pestilent, wearisome, weary, worrisome), ниючий (aching), ниття (whine, yammer), бурчання (croak, growl, grunt, mutter, muttering, nag, scolding), буркотливий (acidulated, acidulous, capernoited, crabbed, criss cross, cross-grained, currish, fumbling, grouchy, sourish, testy), причіпка (arraignment, caption, cavil, chicane, chicanery, nag, nip). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | mè nheo sự rầy la, hay rầy la, hay mè nheo. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "nagging": naggingly. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "nagging": snagging. (additional references) | |
| |
"Nagging" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: anging, Nagan, Naga-ni, naggling, nagini, nagling, nigging, nogging, nyggin. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "nagging" (pronounced na"ging) |
| 5 | n a" g i ng | snagging. |
| 4 | -a" g i ng | bagging, bragging, dragging, flagging, lagging, sagging, tagging, unflagging, wagging. |
| 3 | -g i ng | begging, binging, bogging, bootlegging, bugging, cataloging, cataloguing, chugging, clogging, debugging, demagoguing, digging, dogging, drugging, fatiguing, flogging, gigging, hogging, hugging, intriguing, jitterbugging, jogging, leapfrogging, legging, logging, lugging, mugging, pegging, plaguing, plugging, reneging, rigging, sandbagging, shrugging, slogging, slugging, snugging, tugging, zigzagging. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: ganging. | |
| Words within the letters "a-g-g-g-i-n-n" | |
-1 letter: gaging. | |
-2 letters: aging. | |
-3 letters: agin, gain, gang, giga. | |
-4 letters: ain, ani, gag, gan, gig, gin, inn, nag, nan. | |
-5 letters: ag, ai, an, in, na. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-g-g-g-i-n-n" | |
+1 letter: engaging, gangling, snagging. | |
+2 letters: naggingly, waggoning. | |
+3 letters: engagingly, gaingiving, gangrening, niggarding, reengaging, unflagging. | |
+4 letters: antifogging, disengaging, gaingivings, sandbagging, tobogganing. | |
+5 letters: agglutinogen, aggrandising, aggrandizing, congregating, tobogganings, unflaggingly. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4E 61 67 67 69 6E 67 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-. .- --. --. .. -. --. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001110 01100001 01100111 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)N a g g i n g |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004E 0061 0067 0067 0069 006E 0067 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)48677373758073 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Orthography 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
