skinflint
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of skinflint
Explanation
A skinflint is someone who only shops at bargain stores, never orders dessert, and in general hates spending money. It's not a nice word, so if you're trying to compliment someone, better to call them "thrifty" or "frugal." A flint is a kind of rock that was used in the olden days to start a fire. If you didn't want to buy a new flint, you'd use an old one over and over again, "skinning" it — that is, wearing it down until it's as thin as skin. So someone who did that would be called a skinflint. It's another way of saying that someone will try to squeeze a penny out of anything.
Vocabulary lists containing skinflint
Scrooge, Grinch, and Churl: Wonderful Words for Unpleasant People
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Lyddie
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Walden
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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.
I understand that you are making the case that you are hardly a skinflint.
From MarketWatch • Jul. 1, 2026
After a relationship marked by Turner being neat freak and a skinflint, they broke up after he shamed her for gaining 10 pounds.
From Salon • Dec. 2, 2023
A PR man flirts with a newswoman and his client’s daughter while changing a skinflint tycoon’s image.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 1, 2019
“That may be, but that’s not setting the bar too high. Jerry has cultivated an image of himself as a skinflint, which has caused most conservatives to smart and laugh.”
From New York Times • Jan. 24, 2018
You don’t expect a jerk and a skinflint to be grateful to his employees, do you?
From "Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt
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.
