niggard

Etymology

From Middle English nigard, nygard (“miser”), from nig (“niggardly person”), possibly of Scandinavian origin; compare Old Icelandic hnǫggr (“miserly, stingy”), Old Norse *hniggw, with descendants Swedish njugg (“stingy”), dialectal Swedish niggla (“be stingy”), dialectal Norwegian nigla. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *hnauwjaz, source of Old English hneaw (“stingy”), replaced by Middle English nig. Possibly cognate to niggle (“miser”). Compare German Knicker (“niggard”), knickerig (“niggardly”). Unrelated to the word nigger, but see the usage notes.

adj

1. Sparing; stinting; parsimonious.
2. Miserly or stingy.
   It was, however, the pleasure of his niggard and unhappy fortune, that in seeking a place proper for his accommodation, he and Dapple tumbled into a deep and very dark pit, among a number of old buildings. 1755, Tobias Smollett, chapter III, in The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote, translated from the original Spanish of Cervantes, volume II
   [H]is heart swelled within him, as he sat at the head of his own table, on the occasion of the house-warming, dispensing with no niggard hand the gratuitous viands and unlimited beer, which were at once to symbolise and inaugurate the hospitality of his mansion. 1852, William, Robert Chambers, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal

noun

1. A miser or stingy person; a skinflint.
   All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them. 1618, John Taylor, The Pennyles Pilgrimage or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor
   ‘No niggard are you, Éomer,’ said Aragorn, ‘to give thus to Gondor the fairest thing in your realm!’ 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter 6 "Many Partings"
2. A false bottom in a grate, used for saving fuel.
   1833, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Godolphin It was evening: he ordered a fire and lights; and, leaning his face on his hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky upbreakings of the flame through the bars of the niggard and contracted grate […]
   1851, From a catalog of the Great Exhibition Cooking apparatus, adapted for an opening eight feet wide, by five feet high, and containing an open-fire roasting range, with sliding spit-racks and winding cheek or niggard;
   Neither this nor the Brompton house have a kitchen-range (that is, Grate like the Miles's), but only a grate with moveable niggards etc. May 21 1834, Thomas Carlyle, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Lady Gertrude Hoffmann Bliss, Thomas Carlyle: Letters to His Wife, published 1953, page 100
   A niggard was a movable side to the kitchen grate which could be wound up with a handle so as to make the fire […] 1979, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, volume 109, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 15

verb

1. (intransitive) To hoard; to act stingily.