• (America) IPA: [ˈnɪɡɚd]
• (RP) IPA: [ˈnɪɡəd]

niggard

1. Sparing; stinting; parsimonious.
2. Miserly or stingy.
   • 1755, Tobias Smollett, The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote, translated from the original Spanish of Cervantes, Volume II, Chapter III:

     It was, however, the pleasure of his niggard and unhappy fortune, that in seeking a place proper for his accommodation, he and Dapple tumbled into a deep and very dark pit, among a number of old buildings.

   • 1852, William and Robert Chambers, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal:

     [H]is heart swelled within him, as he sat at the head of his own table, on the occasion of the house-warming, dispensing with no niggard hand the gratuitous viands and unlimited beer, which were at once to symbolise and inaugurate the hospitality of his mansion.

niggard (plural niggards)

1. A miser or stingy person; a skinflint.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 4:

     Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

     The bounteous largess given thee to give?

   • 1618, John Taylor, The Pennyles Pilgrimage OR The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor:

     All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them.

   • 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!’

2. A false bottom in a grate, used for saving fuel.
   • , 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 […]

   • 1851, From a catalog of the Great Exhibition

     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;

• (miser or stingy person) See also Thesaurus:miser

niggard (niggards, present participle niggarding; past and past participle niggarded)

1. (intransitive) To hoard#Verb|hoard; to act stingily.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 1”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted‎, London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, OCLC 216596634 ↗:

     Within thine owne bud burieſt thy content, / And tender churl#English|chorle makſt waste#English|waſt in niggarding: {{...}

• See also Thesaurus:amass

• nig
• niggish
• niggle
• nigon