Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Unusual or excessive frugality; extreme economy or stinginess.
  • noun Adoption of the simplest assumption in the formulation of a theory or in the interpretation of data, especially in accordance with the rule of Ockham's razor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Sparingness in the use or expenditure of means; most commonly, excessive or unnecessary economy; stinginess; niggardliness.
  • noun Synonyms Stinginess, niggardliness, penuriousness. See penurious.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Closeness or sparingness in the expenditure of money; -- generally in a bad sense; excessive frugality; niggardliness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Great reluctance to spend money unnecessarily.
  • noun By analogy from (1), principle of using the least resources or explanations to solve a problem.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun extreme stinginess
  • noun extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English parcimony, from Latin parsimōnia, from parsus, past participle of parcere, to spare.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French parsimonie, from Latin parsimōnia ("sparingness, frugality"), from parcere ("to be sparing").

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Examples

Comments

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  • if this were pronounced more like persimmon, I would like it.

    March 13, 2007