During the middle ages, households had to contend with all kinds of misery, among them, household pests like the common rat. Since modern rat killers were not yet known, rats infested all houses, taking possession of all that they surveyed. The homes also hosted other fauna, from birds to squirrels to bats. Naturally, when the rats and squirrels got to work they would gnaw everything in sight, anything that looked edible.
The constant sound of vermin gnawing away would drive many a householder crazy. The German-speaking people came up with a word to describe this unwelcome activity of the vermin: NAGGEN, taken from a Scandinavian word meaning “to gnaw”. Pretty soon, the word was used for any activity or disturbance similar to what the household pests would be doing, gnawing away happily while driving the house inhabitants to distraction.
It is not clear when the expression TO NAG began to find use in describing someone constantly nit-picking or fault-finding. This is pretty much the meaning it has today.
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