NIGGARDLY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does niggardly mean? 

• NIGGARDLY (adjective)
  The adjective NIGGARDLY has 1 sense:

1. petty or reluctant in giving or spending

  Familiarity information: NIGGARDLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NIGGARDLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Petty or reluctant in giving or spending

Synonyms:

grudging; niggardly; scrimy

Context example:

a niggardly tip

Similar:

stingy; ungenerous (unwilling to spend (money, time, resources, etc.))

Derivation:

niggard (a selfish person who is unwilling to give or spend)

niggardliness (extreme stinginess)

 Context examples 

A little white wine and a cold bird—it is as much as the niggardly Scotchman will allow me.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“If you do your work well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly treatment.”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Nature had been niggardly with him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A living, of which Mr. Morland was himself patron and incumbent, of about four hundred pounds yearly value, was to be resigned to his son as soon as he should be old enough to take it; no trifling deduction from the family income, no niggardly assignment to one of ten children.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

They came from Exeter, well provided with admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)