cheap skate

Idioms  

1. A stingy person, as in He's a real cheap skate when it comes to tipping. This idiom combines cheap (for “penurious”) with the slang usage of skate for a contemptible or low individual. It has largely replaced the earlier cheap John. [Slang; late 1800s]

---

Example Sentences

He's a cheap skate to get you into this trouble and not help you out.

From In a Little Town by Hughes, Rupert

"You're taggin' yoreself a bully an' a cheap skate when you do it."

From A Man Four-Square by Raine, William MacLeod

Don't tell me that you are interested in that cheap skate.

From The Sisters-In-Law by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn

He’s a cheap skate, into a motorboat—but I don’t expect he’ll be into hit long, ’count of some river fellers bein’ with him.

From The River Prophet by Coleman, Ralph P. (Ralph Pallen)

Some cheap skate of a private detective, eh!

From Shorty McCabe by Wilson, F. Vaux (Francis Vaux)