cheapskate

cheapskate
noun
 
: a miserly or stingy person
especially : one who tries to avoid paying a fair share of costs or expenses


Synonyms
churl
hunks
miser
niggard
penny-pincher
piker
scrooge
skinflint
tightwad

Example Sentences
a cheapskate who lived like a pauper, she was reputedly the wealthiest woman in the U.S. at the time of her death
Recent Examples on the Web
Buffett may be, like Scrooge, kind of a cheapskate with personal expenditures, but unlike Scrooge (and unlike Gramm), Buffett believes that the wealthy are undertaxed.
 Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 22 Sep. 2022
When the Halos somehow lucked into Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani — the best player in baseball and the most exciting, respectively — Moreno suddenly turned into a cheapskate and didn’t surround them with a competitive team.
 Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 24 Aug. 2022
The Rhodes Memorial, in other words, is not of the cheapskate, Soviet variety.
 Hedley Twidle, Harper's Magazine, 23 Nov. 2021
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These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cheapskate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.



Word History
First Known Use
1898, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of cheapskate was in 1898
See more words from the same year