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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
frugal
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a frugal existence (=without much money)
▪ He led a hard and frugal existence.
lead/live a solitary/frugal etc existence
▪ The women lead a miserable existence.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He was very frugal, and would often use a tea bag three or four times over.
▪ Hidden hotel costs can be a source of frustration to the frugal traveler.
▪ The monks lead a frugal life, allowing themselves only the bare essentials.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But it is a frugal state, and the politics of frugality often breed conservative social and civic decisions.
▪ Entrepreneurs have to be particularly frugal and inventive.
▪ He found the president eating a frugal meal and using pottery dishes and knife, fork, and spoon of iron.
▪ He was a hardworking, frugal and thrifty man who was saving to buy a small cottage from his employer.
▪ Since those officials are not under the thumb of councillors worried about rates increases, they are less likely to be frugal.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Frugal

Frugal \Fru"gal\, a. [L. frugalis, fr. frugi, lit., for fruit; hence, fit for food, useful, proper, temperate, the dative of frux, frugis, fruit, akin to E. fruit: cf. F. frugal. See Fruit, n.]

  1. Economical in the use or appropriation of resources; not wasteful or lavish; wise in the expenditure or application of force, materials, time, etc.; characterized by frugality; sparing; economical; saving; as, a frugal housekeeper; frugal of time.

    I oft admire How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit Such disproportions.
    --Milton.

  2. Obtained by, or appropriate to, economy; as, a frugal fortune. ``Frugal fare.''
    --Dryden.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
frugal

"economical in use," 1590s, from Middle French frugal, from Latin frugalis, from undeclined adjective frugi "useful, proper, worthy, honest; temperate, economical," originally dative of frux (plural fruges) "fruit, produce," figuratively "value, result, success," related to fructus (see fruit), from PIE *bhrug- "agricultural produce," also "to enjoy." Sense evolved in Latin from "useful" to "profitable" to "economical." Related: Frugally.

Wiktionary
frugal

a. Avoiding unnecessary expenditure either of money or of anything else which is to be used or consumed; avoiding waste.

WordNet
frugal

adj. avoiding waste; "an economical meal"; "an economical shopper"; "a frugal farmer"; "a frugal lunch"; "a sparing father and a spending son"; "sparing in their use of heat and light"; "stinting in bestowing gifts"; "thrifty because they remember the great Depression"; "`scotch' is used only informally" [syn: economical, scotch, sparing, stinting]

Usage examples of "frugal".

The weather was close, and being satisfied, and, for once, frugal, George cooked the two remaining fish, and swathing them neatly in fresh green leaves, sauntered away, cooing a corroboree of content.

Akbar Khan rode off alone to a nearby village, while the two daffadars prepared a frugal meal of chapattis and dried fish and fed and watered the weary bullocks.

And the occasion which produced that prosaic thought was a night well calculated to make one think of supper and fireside, though the one might be frugal and the other lonely, and as I, Gulliver Jones, the poor foresaid Navy lieutenant, with the honoured stars of our Republic on my collar, and an undeserved snub from those in authority rankling in my heart, picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness of a New York slum I longed for steak and stout, slippers and a pipe, with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul.

He was frugal in his eating, backward in drinking, and allowed himself no pleasures save three pipes a day of Oronooko tobacco, which he kept ever in a brown jar by the great wooden chair on the left-hand side of the mantelshelf.

This necessitated a frugal and industrious life which in many ways was doubtless favorable to longevity but which may often have led to overexposure, overwork, lack of proper medical treatment, or other causes of a non-selective death.

The most unnatural articles of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of unconvulsed periods of existence.

Athens had its philosopher of the frugal life: in a cabin of the village of Colonus, Demonax was leading an exemplary but merry existence.

Good, warm coffee, brewed in the frugal Norski style that let you drink it, rather than practically have to cut it with a fork, the way they made it in the city.

They were seated at a frugal lunch outside the pavilion, so placed to see the looming front of Overhall Castle without hindrance.

Or, to put it in a way that a dictionary writer might like better, Phariseeism is the belief that a man or woman can lay claim to moral superiority by certain austere habits of behavior, plain dress, and frugal living.

For the frugal and underfunded Dean, the closest thing to relaxation is solitary time in the backseat of his state car, a motorized luxury that he will lose when his final term as governor ends come January.

The monks had nursed him and cared for him and shared their own frugal sustenance with him for years, while the civil war and crusades raged all about them and their tiny haven of refuge.

They ate the frugal lunch, husking the scorched maize with their fingers and washing it down with the strong, black, oversweetened tea.

It is this ignorance of the real value of money that squanders fortunes, and fritters away accumulated patrimonies so laboriously earned and saved in the frugal provinces.

At that period Athens had its philosopher of the frugal life: in a cabin of the village of Colonus, Demonax was leading an exemplary but merry existence.