stingy
English
Etymology 1
Uncertain, possibly from stinge, a dialectal variation of sting (verb).
Pronunciation
- enPR: stĭnʹjē, IPA(key): /ˈstɪnd͡ʒi/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪnd͡ʒi
Adjective
stingy (comparative stingier, superlative stingiest)
- Unwilling to spend, give, or share; ungenerous; mean
- 1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea Chapter XVIII
- "Well, I'm doing my best to grow," said Davy, "but it's a thing you can't hurry much. If Marilla wasn't so stingy with her jam I believe I'd grow a lot faster."
- 1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea Chapter XVIII
- Small, scant, meager, insufficient
- 2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times:
- As the moon wheels around Earth every 28 days and shows us a progressively greater and then stingier slice of its sun-lightened face, the distance between the moon and Earth changes, too. At the nearest point along its egg-shaped orbit, its perigee, the moon may be 26,000 miles closer to us than it is at its far point.
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Usage notes
Usage of "stingy of" was about as common as usage of "stingy with" until about 1900 but became much less common by and since 1920.
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:stingy
Derived terms
- stinge
- stingily
- stinginess
Translations
unwilling to spend or give
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Translations to be checked
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Etymology 2
sting + -y
Pronunciation
- enPR: stĭngʹē, IPA(key): /ˈstɪŋi/
Audio (UK) (file)
- Rhymes: -ɪŋi
Adjective
stingy (comparative stingier, superlative stingiest)
- (informal) Stinging; able or inclined to sting.
- 2015, Kelvin Smith, Four Little Soldiers (page 33)
- Bumble bee – Bumble bee / I send to you this sonnet, / But please don't be – Bumble bee / The stingy bee in my bonnet.
- 2015, Kelvin Smith, Four Little Soldiers (page 33)
Translations
able to sting
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Anagrams
- Yingst, stying, tyings