niggardly
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word niggardly. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word niggardly, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say niggardly in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word niggardly you have here. The definition of the word niggardly will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofniggardly, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
Pronunciation
Adjective
niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)
- Withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.
- Synonyms: miserly, stingy; see also Thesaurus:stingy
- 1609, Joseph Hall, (paraphrasing Ambrose? in) "No Peace with Rome", in Josiah Pratt (editor), The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D. D., Vol. IX. Polemical Works, London, (1808), page 57:
- here the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly.
- 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 47”, in The Moon and Sixpence, : Grosset & Dunlap Publishers , →OCLC:
- They were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.
- 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, published 1998, →ISBN, page 186:
- This manifests itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others.
Usage notes
- This term may cause offence, especially in the US, as it is easily confused with niggerly, an adjectival form of the racial slur nigger. As such, even though the two words are etymologically unrelated, it has still fallen out of general use.
Translations
withholding
|
Adverb
niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)
- (now rare) In a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:, New York 2001, p.105:
- because many families are compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little .
Translations
in a parsimonious way — see stingily
References
- ^ Racist Language, Real and Imagined, Steven Pinker. February 2, 1999. The New York Times (editorial).
Further reading
Controversies about the word "niggardly" on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
