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cheapskate
noun
cheap·skate
ˈchēp-ˌskāt
: a miserly or stingy person
especially
: one who tries to avoid paying a fair share of costs or expenses
Synonyms
Examples of cheapskate in a Sentence
a cheapskate who lived like a pauper, she was reputedly the wealthiest woman in the U.S. at the time of her death
Recent Examples on the Web
The best choice for total cheapskates Maybe listening to a football game isn’t ideal.
—Shira Ovide, Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2024
The company explained that the system, which is being tested in random locations around the U.S. and Canada, is intended to create incentives against cheapskates.
—Emily Heil, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2023
Supporters of the new verification system have criticized those unwilling to pay as cheapskates or worse, and the argument would have an internal sort of logic if the new product did the same thing as the old product.
—Brian Fung, CNN, 24 Apr. 2023
Andy’s a cheapskate.
—Phillip Picardi, Vogue, 16 Dec. 2020
Clearly, this isn't your cheapskate uncle's Spectra.
—Joe Lorio, Car and Driver, 6 Dec. 2022
Buffett may be, like Scrooge, kind of a cheapskate with personal expenditures, but unlike Scrooge (and unlike Gramm), Buffett believes that the wealthy are undertaxed.
—Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 22 Sep. 2022
When the Halos somehow lucked into Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani — the best player in baseball and the most exciting, respectively — Moreno suddenly turned into a cheapskate and didn’t surround them with a competitive team.
—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 24 Aug. 2022
The Rhodes Memorial, in other words, is not of the cheapskate, Soviet variety.
—Hedley Twidle, Harper's Magazine, 23 Nov. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cheapskate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
1898, in the meaning defined above
Articles Related to cheapskate
Dictionary Entries Near cheapskate
Cite this Entry
“Cheapskate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheapskate. Accessed 10 Jun. 2024.
Kids Definition
cheapskate
noun
cheap·skate
ˈchēp-ˌskāt
: a miserly or stingy person
especially
: one who tries to avoid paying his or her fair share
Etymology
-skate from earlier skate "a person," probably from a dialect word skite, meaning "an offensive person"
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