Niggardly/niggard predates the racist slur by quite a while but it still has gotten people in trouble for using it. It has completely different roots not in racism. It just sounds too similar for anyone to use.
I have a niggling feeling there are more of these words
Like chigger
Add an “s” in front of the n-word and it apparently becomes a synonym for snicker. Crazy stuff.
There was a story about a politician in the 19th or early 20th century who slandered an opponent by describing him using fancy words that were perfectly innocent but sounded sinister in context. His speech had sentences like “a tireless pedagogue known to associate with thespians” or similar.
People accused everyone of associating with thespians when I was in middle school.
Toaster.
Oh, yeah? Well, fuck your couch.
Rejigger
Bigger. You should use “larger” instead.
“bugger” is fine, though.
Niggard
which predates the bad word by nearly 500 years and means someone who is a miser.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
Exiguous
Prestigiditation.
If I didn’t know what that meant and heard you say it, I’d probably be asking what you called my mother.
Also, I found “legerdemain” as a synonym on a thesaurus site and I think the same thing would apply. Don’t know about anyone else, but to me that just sounds like it’s a German word.
Jittery
Clanker (because LLMs don’t actually have feelings and shouldn’t be anthropomorphized)
Dykes for Diagonal Cutters/Wire Cutters. Also, Dike as as in low barriers used for flood control. That said, I wasn’t aware the spelling made any difference until I looked it up just now.
mook
goon
bishonen
chandler
Renig or Renege
Renig is a common misspelling of renege, variously used for “backing out on an agreement” and often mistaken as a racial epithet. (Courtesy of dictionary.com)
Negro, just means black, but in English it’s a mess.