niggardliness

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English niggardly

Proto-Germanic *-in-

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti

Proto-Germanic *-ōną

Proto-Germanic *-inōną

Proto-Indo-European *-dyé-

Proto-Germanic *-atjaną

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Germanic *-þuz

Proto-Germanic *-assuz

Proto-Germanic *-inassuz

Proto-West Germanic *-nassī

Old English -nes

Middle English -nesse

English -ness

English niggardliness

From niggardly + -ness.

Noun

niggardliness (usually uncountable, plural niggardlinesses)

1. The state of being niggardly; parsimony. [from 16th c.]
   • 1851, George Wilson, The Life of the Hon. Henry Cavendish‎^[1], page 161:

     Whatever obscurity or incongruity attaches to the statements I have quoted, those who made them are manifestly at one as to the two cardinal facts, that Cavendish was, for the first forty years of his life, a poor man, and for the last thirty-nine an unusually wealthy one. No one seems able to assign a reason for his father’s niggardliness towards him. There is good reason, however, for believing that the cause of Lord Charles Cavendish’s parsimony to his son has been misapprehended.

Usage notes

See niggardly § Usage notes.

Synonyms

• niggardness, niggardship, niggardy, niggardry, niggardise (all obsolete)