niggard
Americannoun
adjective
noun
adjective
Sensitive Note
The words niggard and niggardly are often misinterpreted as racial slurs because they sound like what is probably the most offensive word in the English language. Actually, niggard dates back to Middle English. The first element nygg-, nig- was borrowed from a Scandinavian source, and -ard is a pejorative suffix. The adjective and adverb niggardly is a modern English formation from niggard. Historical linguists and others familiar with the etymology of these words know that they are not truly related to the word nigger. However, the source of a term is not as important as how it is perceived and used in contemporary language. So even if the words niggard and niggardly are not racial slurs in their etymologies, meanings, or historical uses, it may be wisest to avoid these terms. The connotation or perception of any word is determined by how it is used, received, and interpreted; niggard and niggardly may be offensive to many speakers because of this speculative, but false, etymology.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of niggard
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English nyggard, nigard “a stingy person,” from earlier nig “a stingy person” (from Old Norse; compare Old Icelandic hnöggr “stingy,” dialectal Swedish njugg, nygg “parsimonious”; akin to Old English hnēaw “stingy”) + -ard
Vocabulary lists containing niggard
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 Aga Khans have been generously rewarded by Britannia—no niggard when she obtains good value for her money.
From Time Magazine Archive
Flowing around you, not brooding and nursing every niggard stone.
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
We chase the fleeing beauty all our lives long; "Nor is there near so brisk a fire In fruition, as desire; The niggard sense, too poor for bliss, Pays us but dully with what is."
From Tablets by Alcott, Amos Bronson
He came poor, and that niggard land never made him rich.
From The Spanish Pioneers by Lummis, Charles F.
I was not disposed to be niggard of promises; but in vain.
From The Captive in Patagonia by Bourne, Benjamin Franklin
The authorities of the London and Suburban Bank were no niggards.
From The Man Upstairs and Other Stories by Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Nature—it seems—when she meant us for earth Spent so much of her treasure in the birth As ever after niggards her, and she, Thus stor'd within, beggars us outwardly.
From Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II by Chambers, E. K. (Edmund Kerchever)
“Sailors earned their money like horses and spent it like asses,” says an old writer, and certainly, once ashore, they were no niggards.
From The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries To-Day and in Days of Old by Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Heber's generosity has been nobly praised by Scott, who contrasts the hard-heartedness of other bibliophiles, those "gripple niggards" who preferred holding on to their treasures, with his friend's careless liberality.
From Americans and Others by Repplier, Agnes
On March 7 he writes: "I have centered all my hopes on Paris, for the German princes are all niggards."
From Mozart: the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words by Kerst, Friedrich
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.
