English

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Etymology 1

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Uncertain, possibly from stinge, a dialectal variation of sting (verb).

Pronunciation

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  • enPR: stĭnʹjē, IPA(key): /ˈstɪnd͡ʒi/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪnd͡ʒi

Adjective

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stingy (comparative stingier, superlative stingiest)

  1. Unwilling to spend, give, or share; ungenerous; mean.
    • 1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter XVIII, in Anne of Avonlea:
      "Well, I'm doing my best to grow," said Davy, "but it's a thing you can't hurry much. If Marilla wasn't so stingy with her jam I believe I'd grow a lot faster."
  2. Small, scant, meager, insufficient.
    • 1985 April 13, Charles Henry Fuller, “Learning to Draw my Name”, in Gay Community News, page 8:
      The realization of this joint oppression is like discovering that the stingy crusts of bread being held out by society have mold on them.
    • 2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times[1]:
      As the moon wheels around Earth every 28 days and shows us a progressively greater and then stingier slice of its sun-lightened face, the distance between the moon and Earth changes, too. At the nearest point along its egg-shaped orbit, its perigee, the moon may be 26,000 miles closer to us than it is at its far point.
Usage notes
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Usage of "stingy of" was about as common as usage of "stingy with" until about 1900 but became much less common by and since 1920.

Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Etymology 2

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From sting +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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stingy (comparative stingier, superlative stingiest)

  1. (informal) Stinging; able or inclined to sting.
    • 2015, Kelvin Smith, Four Little Soldiers, page 33:
      Bumble bee – Bumble bee / I send to you this sonnet, / But please don't be – Bumble bee / The stingy bee in my bonnet.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Anagrams

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