nettler

English

Etymology

nettle +‎ -er

Noun

nettler (plural nettlers)

1. One who nettles; a vexatious or provoking individual or organization.
   • 1641, John Milton, Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 142:

     But theſe are the Nettlers, theſe are the babbing Bookes that tell, though not halfe your fellows feats.

   • 1968, Filmfacts - Volume 11, page 347:

     The husband is a mildly stuffy blueblood who somewhat nettles his high-style-model wife, but she is a brisk, free-wheeling creature who is a bit of a nettler herself.

   • 1986, Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume 3:, page 370:

     But for all the archivist energies and pack-rat instincts of its founder, the Church League of America never became much more than a filing system turned noisy, a nettler of liberals, a voice that suggested that the ecumenical forces could not alone own the day.

2. An irritation or provocation.
   • 1820, John Hamilton Reynolds, The Fancy: a Selection from the Poetical Remains of the Late Peter Corcoran:

     That thrust you gave me, Tims, has prov'd a nettler— Your stab turns out, what I have been, — a Settler!

   • 1917 October, “When Things Go Wrong”, in Woodworkers Record, volume 8, number 1:

     Let us remember that these spiked nettlers of life are part of our discipline. Life would get nauseating if it were all honey.

   • 1967, Daniel A. Sugarman, ‎Rolaine A. Hochstein, The Seventeen Guide to Knowing Yourself, page 147:

     It will hardly surprise you to learn that frustrations about boy friends and dating plans are common teen-age nettlers.

3. On who applies nettles to another person (as a prank, punishment, or as part of a ritual).
   • 1937, Eleanor Grace Clark, Elizabethan Fustian, page 108:

     So far as we know, neither Walsingham nor Burghley ever recongnized their portraits as Cosmosophos and Piloplutos in Lodge's Catharos...A Nettle for Nice Noses. but it is safe to say that neither the Secretary nor the Lord Treasurer allowed their noses to be nettled with impunity if the nettler ever came within their proper reach.

   • 1952, Geoffrey Grigson, Gardenage: Or, The Plants of Ninhursaga, page 69:

     Nettled noses can be no delight to the nettled and ought to be no delight to the nettlers.

   • 1981, John Edwin Hudelson, The Expansion and Development of Quichua Transitional Culture in the Upper Amazon Basin, page 145:

     Yost, (personal communication) reports for the Waorani that nettling, among other things is used to pass power or certain abilities from one person ( the nettler ) to another. It is never, as Westerners often think, a cruel form of punishment.

4. A plant or animal that has poisonous stinging hairs, spikes or tendrils.
   • 1973, Kyōto Daigaku. Seto Rinkai Jikkenjo, Publications of the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, page 686:

     The first description of the latter cnidae in that species was made by Uchida in 1929 (Uchida, 1929). Both animals are rather heavy nettlers for human divers and bathers.

   • 1992, F. Tom Turpin, The Insect Appreciation Digest, page 70:

     Nettlers are the mild-mannered poison peddlers of the world. Nettlers are passive stingers.They include stinging plants, some are appropriately called nettles, jellyfish and some caterpillars.

   • 2020, Sven Gehrmann, Fire! In the Wadden Sea, page 40:

     Fortunately, there are only a few jellyfish in the North Sea which are painfully nettlers, but you should always be careful not to touch unknown cnidarians.

Anagrams

• lettern