Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A stingy, grasping person; a miser.
- adj. Stingy; miserly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A stingy or close-fisted person; a parsimonious or avaricious person; one who stints, or supplies sparingly; a miser.
- n. A false bottom in a grate, used for saving fuel. Also nigger.
- Sparing; stinting; parsimonious.
- To stint; supply sparingly.
- To be parsimonious or niggardly.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A person meanly stingy and covetous; one who spends grudgingly; a stingy, parsimonious fellow; a miser.
- adj. Like a niggard; meanly covetous or parsimonious; niggardly; miserly; stingy.
- v. To act the niggard toward; to be niggardly.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a selfish person who is unwilling to give or spend
Etymologies
- Middle English nigard, perhaps from nig, stingy person, of Scandinavian origin.
Examples
“The Highland soldier, far from his country, is accompanied by this holy love, this inexhaustible stimulus to exertion, which induces him to save with what may be unjustly called a niggard hand his earnings, to support, in their old age, those who have given him birth.”
“The niggard is a thief; he steals from himself in not allowing himself what is needful.”
“On account that people (including blacks) are inclined to confuse “niggard” with a similar word which is a racial slur.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Public Opinion, Anti-Discrimination Law, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
“Could poor Robert have kept his children in their old habits of living, he might have reserved some of the profits arising from his works, but he loved his children too tenderly to be a niggard; and, besides, he received his profits at a time when bread was six or seven shillings per stone: no wonder that with a sickly family to sup port, he was embarrassed.”
“A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the”
“We cannot be niggard with Kahekili and cut his allotment of sacrifice in half. ”
“The thatch of hair, dust-coloured, straight and sparse, advertised the niggard soil, as did the nose, thin, delicately modelled, and just hinting the suggestion of a beak.”
The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii:The House of Pride
“Through the centuries niggard of it, like the aloe with its bud;”
“On account that people including blacks are inclined to confuse “niggard” with a similar word which is a racial slur.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Public Opinion, Anti-Discrimination Law, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
“All he seemed able to do, though, was recall his father's castle, hawks nesting in the bell tower, himself about to ride forth on one of the horses they still used at home but pausing to look down the mountainside, fells and woods and the peasants 'niggard fields, then everything hazed into blue hugeness.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘niggard’.
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'ard enough
The derogatory suffix -ard, now used in just a few words though previously very productive.
bastard, coward, shittard, squittard, cackard, snivelard, dullard, sluggard, niggard, dizzard, blaggard, drunkard and 21 more...
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Tolkien's archaisms
sigaldry, moot, kine, fey, eyot, ghylls, gangrel, glede, ilexes, laved, niggard, league and 44 more...
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Disturbing definitions from the Century Dictionary
Although the Century Dictionary has some exquisite definitions which exhibit attention to scientific detail and respect for terms, ideas, and technology that might otherwise be forgotten, this wind...
cockshy, homosexuality, niggard, sodomy, Creole, promiscuity, savage, ass, hamfatter, ill-gendered, madras, hydrencephalocele and 18 more...
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