Etymology

noogie

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Today it means: An act of putting a person in a headlock and rubbing one's knuckles on the other person's head, often a playful gesture of affection when done lightly. Full definition →

Yiddish נודזשען ← Hebrew נוגות
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The story

  1. Hebrew · derived fromנוגות“afflict”
  2. Yiddish · derived fromנודזשען“to badger”
  3. English todaynoogie

Unknown, possibly from Yiddish נודזשען (nudzhen, “to badger”), or possibly from Hebrew נוגות (nugot, “afflict”) (see Eicha/Lamentations 1:3) or possibly via an alteration of nudge, matching the alteration of wedge to wedgie.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.