Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

On Jan 12, 6:43 pm, "tinwhistler" <ozziemal...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:

Niggardly is a word synonymous with stingy and miserly, and a niggard
(noun) is a miser.
They are both derived from the Old Norse verb nigla, meaning "to fuss
about small matters".
(The English word "niggle" retains the original Norse meaning.)

The word is not related to the word nigger, though someone unfamiliar
with the word "niggardly"
might take offense due to the phonetic similarity between the words.
(The word "nigger" is from the earlier "neger," which is from French
nègre, from Latin niger, meaning black.)

njg