Find the word definition

Crossword clues for niggardly

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
niggardly
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Banks have been niggardly in approving loans.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Niggardly

Niggardly \Nig"gard*ly\ (n[i^]g"g[~e]rd*l[y^]), a. Meanly covetous or avaricious in dealing with others; stingy; niggard.

Where the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly.
--Bp. Hall.

Syn: Avaricious; covetous; parsimonious; sparing; miserly; penurious; sordid; stingy. See Avaricious.

Niggardly

Niggardly \Nig"gard*ly\, adv. In a niggard manner.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
niggardly

1560s, from niggard + -ly (1).\n\nIt was while giving a speech in Washington, to a very international audience, about the British theft of the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon. I described the attitude of the current British authorities as "niggardly." Nobody said anything, but I privately resolved -- having felt the word hanging in the air a bit -- to say "parsimonious" from then on.

[Christopher Hitchens, "The Pernicious Effects of Banning Words," Slate.com, Dec. 4, 2006]

\nAs an adverb from 1520s. Related: Niggardliness.
Wiktionary
niggardly

a. (context now rare English) withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly. adv. (context now rare English) In a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.

WordNet
niggardly

adj. petty in giving or spending; "a niggardly tip" [syn: grudging, scrimy]

Usage examples of "niggardly".

There are cases where it is advisable, in states too poor or niggardly to care adequately for their defectives and delinquents, but eugenists should favor segregation as the main policy, with sterilization for the special cases as previously indicated.

You are no longer the witty, free young officer who told Madame Querini about the game of Pharaoh, end about the deposits made to your bank by the captain in so niggardly a manner that they were hardly worth mentioning.

There is one other point worthy of remark, touching the office of chief banneret, and that is that on the occasion of any siege undertaken by the London forces, the castellain was to receive as his fee the niggardly sum of one hundred shillings for his trouble, and no more.

The costumes of the players were sometimes less niggardly than the furnishing of the stage, for it was an age of rich and picturesque apparel, and it was not difficult to procure the cast-off clothes of fine gentlemen for stage use.

Madame Lamberti, who was in collusion with the rascal, was not niggardly of her favours with the young Englishman.

For them no automatic gas meter grudgingly doles out its niggardly pennyworths of gas.

She wasn't about to tell them that Sally Brainerd now had money, although she didn't know how much she'd gotten from that niggardly old man.

Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly treatment.

When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained - a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, 'I think he good.

No matter how stingy, no inceptor would let an offspring ascend to the terrace without making some gift to the choristers, for they have jeering songs aplenty to direct at the niggardly.

From afar the Mias had died, struck down by the new weapon their Kukul-can had been too slow, too niggardly, to furnish them.

The perihelion temperature on Ganymede never rises high enough to melt the ice of Neptune's Trident, but it does lift through the few niggardly degrees necessary to make the vapor pressure of Ice III known in Ganymede's air.