niggard

Etymology
From, , from , possibly of Scandinavian origin; compare, , with descendants 🇨🇬, dialectal 🇨🇬, dialectal 🇨🇬. Ultimately from, source of , replaced by. Possibly cognate to. Compare 🇨🇬,. Unrelated to the word, but see the usage notes.

Adjective

 * 1) Sparing; stinting; parsimonious.
 * 2) Miserly or stingy.

Noun

 * 1) A miser or stingy person; a skinflint.
 * 2) * 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter 6 "Many Partings":
 * ‘No niggard are you, Éomer,’ said Aragorn, ‘to give thus to Gondor the fairest thing in your realm!’
 * 1) A false bottom in a grate, used for saving fuel.
 * 2) * 1833, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Godolphin
 * It was evening: he ordered a fire and lights; and, leaning his face on his hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky upbreakings of the flame through the bars of the niggard and contracted grate
 * 1) * 1851, From a catalog of the
 * Cooking apparatus, adapted for an opening eight feet wide, by five feet high, and containing an open-fire roasting range, with sliding spit-racks and winding cheek or niggard;
 * It was evening: he ordered a fire and lights; and, leaning his face on his hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky upbreakings of the flame through the bars of the niggard and contracted grate
 * 1) * 1851, From a catalog of the
 * Cooking apparatus, adapted for an opening eight feet wide, by five feet high, and containing an open-fire roasting range, with sliding spit-racks and winding cheek or niggard;

Verb

 * 1)  To hoard; to act stingily.

Usage notes

 * This word is unrelated to the racial slur (a corruption of the Spanish word ), but some in the United States have taken offense at the word's use due to the phonetic similarity between the words. As such, the word has fallen out of general use, though some have attempted to reaffirm it as inoffensive.