lickpenny

plural lickpennies

1. obsoleteSomething that devours or absorbs lots of money; something expensive.

   For well London Lykke-peny for ones and eye, / For lake of money I may not spede.

   15th century, anonymous author, London Lickpenny

   1 more example

   […] at Smyrna, you talked of a lawsuit—law is a lickpenny, Mr Tyrrel—no counsellor like the pound in purse.

   1823, Sir Walter Scott, Saint Ronan's Well

2. A miserly person.

   The Scotsmen, being lickpennies by nature, rode off without paying their bill!

   2014, Gavin Wood, The Fate of the Jacobite Grenadiers

comparative more lickpenny · superlative most lickpenny

1. obsoleteExpensive.

   His pouch was now all void and empty, his future years were like to be sour, thoughty, and woe-begone, and himself a cumberworld, unsicker of his scarce and slender livelihood in lickpenny London, forced to beg, steal, or starve, and gaping after honest death.

   1894, James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, volume 2, pages 22–23

   Synonyms: expensive