niddering

plural nidderings · alternative nidering

1. archaicSynonym of nithing (“a coward, a dastard; a wretch”).

   ‘Now will I have at thee as a base kern and niddering,’ roared the knight.

   1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 57

   1 more example

   [O]n the bodies of his fallen foes he kicked the gray road dust, and spat on them and named them churls and nidderings and unfit wearers of the mail of men of war.

   1948, Seabury Quinn, “The Road to Bethlehem”, in Roads, Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House, →OCLC, page 26; reprinted Mohegan Lake, N.Y.: Red Jacket Press, 2005, →ISBN, page 26

   Synonyms: nithing

comparative more niddering · superlative most niddering · alternative nidering

1. archaicSynonym of nithing (“cowardly, dastardly; notoriously evil or wicked; infamous”).

   Though thou art my son, I say this, that, if thou workest ill to Eric when he is over sea, thou shalt rightly learn the weight of Whitefire: it is a niddering deed to plot against an absent man.

   1891, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “How Eric was Outlawed and Sailed A-viking”, in Eric Brighteyes, 2nd edition, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 121

   1 more example

   I require of thee, as a man of thy word, on pain of being held faithless, man-sworn, and nidering [footnote: Infamous], to forgive and to receive to thy paternal affection the good knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 302

   Synonyms: ill-famed, nidering, nithing, disreputable, ill-famed, infamous, nefarious, nidering