Ebenezer
Americannoun
Usage
What does Ebenezer mean? Ebenezer is a proper name that is perhaps best known as the name of Ebenezer Scrooge, the greedy old guy from Charles Dickens’ short novel A Christmas Carol. In this sense, Ebenezer (or ebenezer) is sometimes used as a term for someone who is especially greedy, or someone who grumpily refuses to participate in Christmastime festivities, as in Only an Ebenezer like you would cancel the toy drive. However, it’s his last name, Scrooge, that’s much more commonly used as a term for such people (often in lowercase as scrooge). Ebenezer also has two other uses. It can refer to a kind of memorial or commemoration of God’s help, especially a stone memorial or a kind of altar. It is also used as a slang word referring to anger or one’s temper, especially in phrases like get your ebenezer up or raise your ebenezer, though it’s now very rarely used in this way.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that democracy, including responsiveness to citizens, was in the interest both of Africans and the United States.
From Barron's • Apr. 8, 2026
We’ll keep it breezy, useful and real, because, as we’ve learned, most people are just trying to get a little better with their money without turning into day traders or Ebenezer Scrooge.
From MarketWatch • Jan. 2, 2026
But he also lashed out, Ebenezer Scrooge-style, at working Americans who want to spoil their kids a little for the holidays.
From Salon • Dec. 10, 2025
Who wouldn’t be curious to see Ebenezer Scrooge take a Tinder date to meet his girlfriends past?
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 19, 2025
On Tuesday, a funeral service was held in the modest redbrick Ebenezer Baptist Church where his father had presided for three decades, and in which young “M. L.”
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
