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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nagging
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a lingering/nagging doubt (=one that does not go away)
▪ I still had a nagging doubt that there might be something seriously wrong.
a nagging pain (=felt all the time)
▪ Rob felt fine, apart from a nagging pain in his left wrist.
a nagging suspicion (=one that you have all the time)
▪ I had a nagging suspicion that Colin wasn't telling me the whole truth.
a nagging worry (=one that you keep worrying about)
▪ She had a little nagging worry in the back of her mind about how Mickey would react.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
doubt
▪ In everything he did there was a touch of charisma, and, following everything he did, a nagging doubt.
▪ Her kinship with the respected Goldie apparently quells any nagging doubts.
▪ The post-war years brought nagging doubts for Mary, when she was not surrounded by her now four healthy children.
▪ Years of experience have left him with nagging doubts about the seemingly perfect customers.
▪ Inside him there was a little nagging doubt.
▪ That nagging doubt, the feeling that something was missing in the woman she was supposed to be.
▪ Only a handful of nagging doubts remained, locked at the back of his mind and these soon seemed hazy and foolish.
▪ This is always a nagging doubt about any survey-style research.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I can't seem to shake off this nagging cold.
▪ I have a nagging feeling that I forgot to do something.
▪ She had a nagging worry that she hadn't done enough to prepare.
▪ There are still some nagging doubts about the future of the company, though for now it is doing well.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But I have this nagging suspicion that my luck as a first-timer tour group leader can not hold.
▪ But there is no nagging sense of anachronism.
▪ I sound like a nagging father.
▪ In everything he did there was a touch of charisma, and, following everything he did, a nagging doubt.
▪ It's sometimes worth asking that nagging little voice what is really the worst thing that can happen now?
▪ The post-war years brought nagging doubts for Mary, when she was not surrounded by her now four healthy children.
▪ There was abdominal pain without a doubt and that nagging temperature of 102.5° - that was damn like a wire.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nagging

Nag \Nag\, v. t. & i. [imp. & p. p. Nagged; p. pr. & vb. n. Nagging.] [Cf. Sw. nagga to nibble, peck, Dan. nage to gnaw, Icel. naga, gnaga, G. nagen, & E. gnaw.] To tease in a petty way; to scold habitually; to annoy; to fret pertinaciously. [Colloq.] ``She never nagged.''
--J. Ingelow.

Nagging

Nagging \Nag"ging\ (n[a^]g"g[i^]ng), a. Fault-finding; teasing; persistently annoying; as, a nagging toothache. [Colloq.]

Wiktionary
nagging
  1. Causing persistent mild pain, or annoyance. n. The action of the verb ''nag''. v

  2. (present participle of nag English)

WordNet
nagging

See nag

nagging

adj. continually complaining or faultfinding; "a shrewish wife"; "nagging parents" [syn: shrewish]

nag
  1. n. someone (especially a woman) who annoys people by constantly finding fault [syn: scold, scolder, nagger, common scold]

  2. an old or over-worked horse [syn: hack, jade, plug]

  3. [also: nagging, nagged]

nag
  1. v. bother persistently with trivial complaints; "She nags her husband all day long" [syn: peck, hen-peck]

  2. worry persistently; "nagging concerns and doubts"

  3. remind or urge constantly; "she nagged to take a vacation"

  4. [also: nagging, nagged]

Wikipedia
Nagging

Nagging, in interpersonal communication, is repetitious behaviour in the form of pestering, hectoring, or otherwise continuously urging an individual to complete previously discussed requests or act on advice. As expressed by Elizabeth Bernstein, a Wall Street Journal reporter, nagging is "the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignores it and both become increasingly annoyed". Thus, nagging is a form of persistent persuasion that is more repetitive than aggressive and it is an interaction to which each party contributes. Nagging is a very common form of persuasion used in all aspects of life including domestic and professional. It is also a common practice in order to avoid more aggressive persuasive moves like threats. The word is derived from the Scandinavian nagga, which means "to gnaw".

Usage examples of "nagging".

The nagging weight of fear that had burdened my heart for the last weeks had eased.

Despite her worry and nagging uncertainty, she believed that a connection between her and Dinah did exist.

The one worry still nagging away was whether Dieter Gluck knew Sturffie.

But from every perspective other than the strictly jurisprudential one, the case remains troubling and unsettled, with the more than nagging feeling lingering that in the Lizzie Borden case, justice has not been served.

An added difficulty is that the ones supposed to be fetching Cho now are just as impressed by the local celebrity as the ones up in the Sawah, and nagging them does not seem to help.

Her pet tamrink, Tikal, could often be found scampering through the rigging, nagging the sailors with its constant mimic.

When Leso Varen had died, it was as if a nagging ache in the base of his skull had ceased.

She described the damage to the car with the persistence of a voyeur, almost nagging me with her lurid picture of the crushed radiator grille and the blood spattered across the bonnet.

She wanted to be his only parent, grooming him to stand beside her someday, and whenever Washen looked at Till, she felt a nagging resentment, petty as can be, and since it was directed at a ten year old, simply foolish.

The monologuist Ruth Draper, 18841956, became quite famous in London for stage presentations in which she portrayed a great variety of personalities, ranging from a nagging wife to a peasant girl kneeling in a cathedral.

The insistent, nagging bang of an unlatched shutter swinging freely in the wind several streets over had set some brainless dog to barking, and Sparhawk lay, still half-bemused by sleep, patiently waiting for the dog to grow wet enough or weary enough of his entertainment to seek his kennel again.

Josiah had to stand the hectoring and nagging that thitherto had been distributed among many.

Quintus had left him for adventures in the vineyards, but some nagging shred of conscience told Sabinus that he should remain an observer at the bacchanal, not a participant.

But there was also the nagging feeling that something else still lay within her field of vision, something she had not quite seen, something that might have helped place Roland Quillin behind bars where he belonged.

But he had a strange, nagging feeling that Lou Calabrese was going to be involved, somehow.