mingy
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of mingy
First recorded in 1885–90; m(ean) 2 + (st)ingy 1
Explanation
If you're mingy, you're a penny pincher — in other words, you are not generous about spending your money or sharing it with others. A mingy friend won't offer to buy you lunch, or even a jawbreaker. The adjective mingy is an informal way to describe people who don't like to part with their money, people you might describe as miserly. A mingy restaurant patron is likely to leave a very small tip for his waiter, and it could take years before you get a raise if you work for a mingy boss. Mingy can be used as a variation on stingy, and in fact it probably came from a combination of mean and stingy.
Vocabulary lists containing mingy
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.
That vaguely mingy silhouette, so far in class terms from the fat-knot ties and lavish woolens of Savile Row suits favored by City types then and now, had an appealingly outsider air.
From New York Times • Jan. 15, 2011
But it's a mean, mingy thing — a lot of personal pique and inside baseball.
From Time • Sep. 23, 2010
Since most people avoid commenting on the facilities, or subscribe to the polite fiction that they haven't visited them, any establishment can safely relegate public rest rooms to a dank and mingy corner.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the drab, chilly setting of a mingy government-sponsored art class, British Playwright David Storey sounds a muted dirge for a dying civilization.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is not a mingy number in the lot.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
