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
He has poured a ridiculous amount of his own money into his team’s roster to transform the skinflint Mets into a financial juggernaut.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2025
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
Brown had gone from wise guy to wise man, from skinflint to a bit of a spendthrift; the bullet train caught his eye and his imagination, though it also courted controversy.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2020
Especially when my father said that Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was the skinflint of skinflints, and there probably wouldn’t be much to eat.
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.
