What does the verb "nig" mean?

I have seen a photo on the Internet of a customer filling a large empty jug from a soda fountain at a fast food restaurant. It had caption that someone is "gonna nig". What does "nig" mean?

Among general reference sources:

• It's not in Cambridge or OxfordDictionaries at all.
• There's no verb meaning in the Wiktionary entry.
• I couldn't view its definition in Merriam-Webster because of the paywall.
• The only verb definition in Dictionary.com lists it as a synonym for "nidge", a term used in masonry that makes no sense in context.
• "Nig" as a noun is a clipped racial slur (as seen at YourDictionary and at TheFreeDictionary, which mirrors a Wikipedia disambiguation page).

Is this related to "renege"? Or if it's a verbing of the clipped racial slur, what meaning is implied?

Solution 1:

Not that long ago I asked a question about 19th century north American slang which contained the following

... Bob, be honest, never take a man's trick wot don't belong to you, nor clip cards, nor nig, for then you can't look your man in the face, and when that's the case there's no fun in the game...

The excerpt is dated 1858, and none of the users who posted answers suggested that the expression nig was racist, nor a back formation of the term nigger; in fact there is not a single comment in the entire page that implies otherwise. Obviously in the OP's question the term nig is used in a derisive, and highly racist fashion but the origins of nig is far older than the OP's question and answer might suggest.

Robusto posted the following comment explaining the possible meaning of the term used in that context, which I reproduce verbatim

Also, I believe nig is a shortening of the word renege, which means to trump a card instead of following suit when you still have a card of the led suit in your hand. For example, if someone led hearts and you had a heart you would be required to play a heart. If you trumped the trick instead (which is permissible only if you are out of the led suit), and were later caught at the subterfuge, you would be said to have reneged. Saying "don't nig" is another way of saying "don't cheat." – Robusto Dec 11 '14 at 13:06

From The Century Dictionary online (courtesy of Eric Kowall) the verb nig is defined

nig (nig), v. i. nig to be stingy; be niggardly. "It is better to healpe the mother and mistresss of thy country with thy goods and body than by witholding thy handle, and nigging, to make her not hable to kepe out thine ennemy?" _{Alymer (1559).}

Solution 2:

"Nig" here is a back-formation from a word that is currently considered very offensive. It means "to behave in accord with negative stereotypes of black people."

A back-formation is a word produced by starting with a word whose form suggests a derivation but which was not produced through that derivation and then running the derivation in reverse. One might start with a word whose end looks like a suffix and chop off the suffix. For example, a "hater" is one who hates, formed from "hate" plus "-er", which means one who does something. But "lase" (to emit coherent light) and "tase" (to incapacitate with an electrical weapon) are back-formations from "laser" and "Taser", interpreting them as "lase" and "tase" plus the suffix "-er". In fact, "laser" and "Taser" are acronyms, with the "er" standing for "emission of radiation" and "electric rifle" respectively.

One might assume that "nig" is a back-formation from "renege", which according to Wiktionary can pronounced like "re-nig". "Renege" means to break a promise, and filling a jug from a self-service soda fountain certainly breaks the implied promise that the customer made to the restaurant to fill only the cup that the customer bought.

But if the photo is the same one I found through a web search, it says "niggers gonna nig". Here, "niggers" is an offensive term for people of sub-Saharan African descent, who are more politely called "black people". The term "nigger" ultimately comes from Latin niger, meaning the color black, via Spanish and Portuguese negro. The term originates from pre-1860s black slavery in the United States and the subsequent pre-1960s "Jim Crow" segregation laws and reflects attitudes toward black people that were prevalent in those eras.

The photo's caption appears to be a snowclone of "haters gonna hate", an idiom meaning that hostile remarks from people predisposed to such remarks are inevitable. Thus "niggers gonna nig" means two things: first, that behavior associated with negative stereotypes of black people is inevitable; and second, that black people are predisposed to such misbehavior. One such misbehavior is stealing (see sources at "Criminal stereotype of African Americans" on Wikipedia), and filling a jug when one paid for a cup might be considered stealing. In any case, in our present culture, people who assert that such a predisposition exists are called racist.

Solution 3:

1.) Whether "nig" is a back-formation from the well-known racist term for American Black people, or branches off from that other pejorative, “niggardly,” what’s plain is that the mere utterance of the word so traumatizes many of us that—-unlike any other word I know—-even the linguists of EL&U have great difficulty extricating themselves sufficiently from a past we find deeply shameful to appreciate the extraordinary evolution that this word has undergone.

2.) As correctly stated by the OP/Answerer/Editor(?), “Niggers Gonna Nig,” is a snowclone of “Haters Gonna Hate.” In order to snowclone the original the initial 2-syllable word “Haters” became “Niggas,” and the final single-syllable word, “Hate” became “Nig.” While some may claim that “nig” is a truncation of “nigger,” it has no currency in the US in that sense. “Nig,” as short for “nigger” is only used by closeted racists fearful of being overheard and thus outed, especially when scary Black people are within hearing range. Whereas, proud racists relish fully pronouncing the N-word and loudly proclaiming their vaunted ignorance a virtue before all.

3.) Additionally, though the text at the bottom of the picture in question reads, “Niggers Gonna Nig,” if you hover on that pic you’ll notice that the photo is actually tagged, “Niggas,” and not Niggers. This is not a quibbling distinction, for the two words have opposite meanings today. “Niggers” still means what everyone knows that it means. But, in a potent act of cultural hacking with deep political implications, while Massa slumbered serenely dreaming of empire, the black youth of America crept into his white house, stole the Massa’s forked-tongue, and liberated themselves from the hateful label that had shackled and diminished them for the last 500 years.

4.) Initially this hijacked term was reserved for Blacks. But words that truly resonate (for good or ill) always gain wide currency, and so over time the term came to be applied to any non-Caucasian peoples. As employed by the most progressive of today’s youth, however, “Nigga” or “Niggas,” is a term without racial bearing in many (not all) situations, applied to any person who is a victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by Blacks; to any person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised. In other words, in the most liberal sense, “nigga” now means “true or real human; just plain folk; comrade; and even more which I don’t care to document right now. Wikipedia check-it-out gets pretty close but doesn’t go quite far enough.

5.) The graphic media that gave rise to this controversy was created by Sean C., an American Black from NYC with the brand, "Satisfies69". Sean C. acts as an agent provocateur who specializes in multimedia “shock-art” that is deliberately as iconoclastic as possible—-mocking all aspects of modern culture’s double-standards, violating all its taboos, and holding the funhouse mirror (as it were) up to society’s shadow-face. While at first blush Satisfies69’s work may strike one as the First Amendment’s worst nightmare, and merely vulgar or pornographic (and much of it is!), I find it highly doubtful the work is intended to be racist. Much of his work (I believe) is also socially and politically relevant and meant to deflate our pretensions and exorcize our "badder" devils.

6.) Contrary to the commentary, “Renig,” is pronounced ‘re-nig’ and not ‘re-neyg,’ by native AmE speakers from the working and under classes—-White and Black—-without self-consciousness or irony. As was mentioned, renig is a term used in the card game, Spades—-how ironic is that—-a favored past-time of the millions of White and Black inmates warehoused in the gulags of the United States, and again, is without etymological relation to that hateful ol' racial mojo.