- stingy
- stingy, close, closefisted, tight, tightfisted, niggardly, parsimonious, penurious, miserly, cheeseparing, penny-pinching can mean unwilling or manifesting unwillingness to share one's goods with others or to give to another a part of one's possessions.Stingy implies mainly a lack of generosity; the term is applicable whenever there is a suggestion of a mean or illiberal spirit{
if I want anything, he says that it cannot be afforded. I never thought before that he was stingy, but I am sure now that he must be a miser at heart— Trollope
}{stingy at heart, Cabot, refusing to plunk down what they were asking for movies and plays, began browsing in a .. . public library— Purdy
}Close and closefisted and tight and tightfisted usually imply stinginess of nature, but they also ordinarily suggest the power to keep a tight grip upon whatever one has acquired{closefisted in all his expenditures
}{men and women who are closefisted and make a gift do not want their next week's mail loaded with appeals— William Lawrence
}{he wasn't as tight as you . . . but he was a little bit close. So the bargain hung fire— Hammett
}{must be eagleeyed and tightfisted about these expenditures—/!. E. Stevenson
}Niggardly implies the character of one who is so stingy and so closefisted that he grudgingly gives the smallest portion or amount possible; the term may refer not only to the giving or spending of money or the giving of material goods but to the provision of what would add to the comfort, happiness, or well-being of oneself or of others{as poor and niggardly as it would be to set down no more meat than your company will be sure to eat up— Swift
}{his niggardly allowance for rent and food
}{they were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest— Maugham
}{literature is so lavish with wealth and titles . . . the real world is so niggardly of these things— Huxley
}Parsimonious stresses frugality, but it suggests also niggardliness; because of this double connotation the term usually suggests not a virtue but a fault or, often, a vice{a lonely bachelor life in caring for his property and in adding to it by parsimonious living— Long
}Penurious adds to parsimonious the suggestion of a niggardliness so great as to give the appearance of extreme poverty or of excessive closefistedness{a grudging master ... a penurious niggard of his wealth— Mil ton
}{I had a rich uncle ... a penurious accumulating curmudgeon— Irving
}Miserly implies penuriousness but it stresses obsessive avariciousness as the motive{her expenditure was parsimonious and even miserly—J. R. Green
}{a miserly man who hoards money out of avarice— Empson
}Cheeseparing and penny-pinching suggest frugality and parsimoniousness carried to the extreme{the cheeseparing guardians of the city's finances
}{a campaign of administrative cheeseparing— Alan
}{a penny-pinching appropriation for relief
}Analogous words: *mean, sordid, ignoble: scrimpy, skimpy, *meager: greedy, acquisitive, avaricious, *covetous, grasping: *sparing, economical, frugal, thriftyAntonyms: generous
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
