niggardly

comparative more niggardly · superlative most niggardly

1. Withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.

   [W]here the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly.

   1609, Joseph Hall, (paraphrasing Ambrose? in) "No Peace with Rome", in Josiah Pratt (editor), The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D. D., Vol. IX. Polemical Works, London, (1808), page 57

   2 more examples

   They were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 47”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

   This manifests itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others.

   1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, published 1998, →ISBN, page 186

   Synonyms: miserly, stingy, as tight as Dick's hatband, cheap, cheeseparing, chintzy, close, close as wax

2. ball gamesConceding few runs (of a bowler).

comparative more niggardly · superlative most niggardly

1. archaicIn a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.

   because many families are compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little[…].

   1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York: New York Review Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 105