Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Small in quantity; meager.
- adjective Mean and stingy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective colloquial
Mean ,miserly ,stingy .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (used of persons or behavior) characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Oh, come on ,it's less than twenty quid - don't be 'mingy' !
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When he's got three mornings' worth of video tape – which is all he can afford on this mingy little grant – John will be able to start on the really creative part of the project.
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They sent two boxes and I said, 'You're being mingy, I want four.'
A Boutique-Designing Biker Dude Ray A. Smith 2011
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Shot digitally on a mingy budget, it looks start-of-the-art Hollywood --- just raw and unvarnished, like Hollywood never is.
Jesse Kornbluth: Winter's Bone Is the Best Movie I've Seen This Year (Or Hope to) 2010
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Gordon marries the mother-to-be of his child, takes the job at the New Albion, where he creates a successful ad campaign for foot deodorant, and even buys an aspidistra, the symbol he had long derided of “mingy lower-middle class decency,” installing it in the front window of their apartment for all the world to see.
On being a father 2009
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Gordon marries the mother-to-be of his child, takes the job at the New Albion, where he creates a successful ad campaign for foot deodorant, and even buys an aspidistra, the symbol he had long derided of “mingy lower-middle class decency,” installing it in the front window of their apartment for all the world to see.
Archive 2009-06-01 2009
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The Republicans he seeks to satisfy are ideological goofballs like Iowa's Sen. Chuck Grassley, who wails that a nonprofit public insurance option would offer better deals to consumers than the mingy, exorbitantly expensive health care policies sold by the monopolistic insurance giants.
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First day of Swampitude and the left-wing blogosphere -- which is overpopulated by illiberal leftists and reactionary progressives -- is already attacking me: 24 mostly mingy comments about my Left Behind post, many of which seem to be steaming off a post by Greg Sargent, who writes a blog called The Horse's ...
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They are treating me so well, and they are such nice people, it's hard to find anything mingy to say.
I'm telling you, it wasn't my idea ... karenmiller 2007
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The mother, the Angela of the title, begged for charity and lived off the mingy help of relatives, at one point sleeping with a cousin so that her children might have a place to live.
johnmperry commented on the word mingy
mean, miserly
unconnected with minge
July 23, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word mingy
"If he had been the sort of man to share his worries with his wife, she would have been sure to have pointed it out to him, and even done it nicely, so that he would not feel stupid. But he had a stern sense of a husband's responsibilities and it would never have occurred to him that he might show such a frightening document to a woman.
"So he did not reread the agreement calmly. He did not discuss it with his wife. Instead he decided, even before he met Charles, that he would extract the sum from him.
"Now all that, in its mingy way, is logical enough...."
—Peter Carey, Illywhacker, 439
April 17, 2009
qroqqa commented on the word mingy
Rupert Brooke, letter, 1912: I called you a mingy and coprologous Oxford poetaster.
Nancy Mitford, 1940: Mrs Holst only has the mingiest little diamond clip you ever saw.
Each in their own world.
April 17, 2009