miser
Americannoun
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misers
plural
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a person who lives in wretched circumstances in order to save and hoard money.
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a stingy, avaricious person.
- Synonyms:
- pinchpenny, tightwad, skinflint
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Obsolete. a wretched or unhappy person.
noun
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a person who hoards money or possessions, often living miserably
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selfish person
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of miser
1535–45; < Latin: wretched
Explanation
A miser is someone who hoards his or her own wealth and doesn’t share or spend any of it. If you remember the old saying “You can’t take it with you!” — then you won't end up acting stingy like a miser. The most famous fictional miser is probably Scrooge in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The image of his shivering with cold while he counts his coins illustrates the misery often associated with misers. To be a miser, your impulse to hoard means you won’t even indulge yourself by spending money for fear of depleting your stash.
Vocabulary lists containing miser
Scrooge, Grinch, and Churl: Wonderful Words for Unpleasant People
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"Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began" by Art Spiegelman
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A Room of One's Own
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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.
See Examples For:
The choice is to have a system for drawing down your money smartly so you don’t run out, or living like a miser and ending up with more when you die than you started with.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026
“I’m a miser right now when it comes to what I’m spending at supermarkets,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
Pansy is such a miser that, for a moment, you wonder if she’ll be visited by three spirits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 9, 2025
A new four-episode podcast aims to show how Ebenezer Scrooge became the miserable miser of the Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol,” focusing on themes of redemption, mercy, grace and compassion.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 27, 2023
"You'd lock it up in your lock box and save it 'til you were fifty years old. You're the biggest miser on this planet."
From "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies
For one thing, people are cognitive misers and it’s more efficient to adhere to pre-existing beliefs.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 25, 2021
Jon Clinch has revived the life behind the famous ghost in a prequel that fleshes out the early relationship between the two old misers in “A Christmas Carol.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 22, 2019
How do we prepare them for a world where people are proud to be stupid misers who adhere to no moral code?
From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2017
"The members of the alliance have become absolute misers in terms of our water use," Fredman said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2015
They perfectly roll in diamonds—not to speak of any quantity of marrow-bones; and that is the reason why, like misers, they keep so close at home.
From More Mittens with The Doll's Wedding and Other Stories Being the third book of the series by Aunt Fanny
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.
