niggle

She bowled accurately, ensuring England did not obviously miss Sophie Ecclestone - the world's number one spinner who sat out the game with a thigh niggle.

From BBC ● May 10, 2026

Mbappe had received treatment for a "small niggle" in his right ankle picked up playing for Real Madrid last weekend.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2025

The only real moment of concern for the 2021 US Open champion was when she appeared to be bothered by a back niggle in the second set.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2025

England insisted her absence was due to a lack of game time and to recover from the niggle, though Ecclestone played for her county on the same day the squad was announced.

From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2025

Okay, it did niggle, but it was something I could forget easily enough.

From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

We had a few niggles, not everyone's been training.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

"I had a slow start to the season, picking up a few niggles on international duty and then being left out of the England squad," he said.

From BBC ● May 15, 2026

Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue are the spare quicks in the squad after Stokes struggled with various niggles.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2025

In 2023, after a succession of niggles, Jack Draper said he hated "being the guy who is injured a lot".

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2025

"When you've had such a long period of time out, you have got massive risk of picking up niggles in other areas," Anna Poyser, lead physio at the Lawn Tennis Association, told BBC Sport.

From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2024

Although his knee completely gave up on him when the stakes were highest, it has allowed Aspinall to have surgery, solving a problem which has niggled away at him for his entire UFC career.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2023

Football, or that part of it that professes to have a conscience, breathed a huge sigh of relief but as it did so, some still small voice perhaps niggled.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 24, 2020

The exclusion crushed Kral, and something else niggled him.

From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2020

Up until the last 10 minutes or so,Wales had NZ seriously niggled and were either level or leading.

From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2014

The thought niggled at Ophie as she set down her bucket and began to wipe at the windows, the water sloshing a bit as she worked.

From "Ophie's Ghosts" by Justina Ireland

It’s all too easy to live with these niggling problems until one day a problem turns into an incident.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026

The insurance cost is one of those niggling concerns that could put off would-be buyers.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

In a maelstrom, one might think such niggling questions of jurisdiction and their attendant turf wars would be set aside.

From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026

On a separate farewell podcast for paid subscribers, Maron and his longtime producer Brendan McDonald explained that the relentless workload was tiring and articulated a niggling feeling that the show belonged to a different era.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 23, 2026

What was even worse than having to focus his mind on a series of niggling jobs was the need to conceal his agitation from the telescreen.

From "1984" by George Orwell