Parsimonious Meaning
/pɑː.sɪˈməʊ.ni.əs/Definition, CEFR level C2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjUnwilling to spend money or use resources; extremely frugal or stingy.
adjExhibiting parsimony; sparing in the expenditure of money; frugal, possibly to excess.
Sentence Examples
The parsimonious landlord refused to replace even a broken heater.
He's a parsimonious soul, always looking to find a good deal.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ millionaire refused to buy a new coat, preferring to save every penny.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ millionaire refused to donate to charity.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree English parsimony Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.? Proto-Italic *-ōtsos or *-otsos Latin -ōsus Old French -usbor. Middle English -ous English -ous English parsimonious From parsimony + -ous.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"He was regular in his habits, parsimonious, and industrious; but he lacked all talent needed at the bar—he had neither address, nor eloquence, nor ingenuity."
— 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 68:
"Our fathers would have an economical government, even if grand people called it a parsimonious one, and taxes should be no greater than were absolutely necessary to pay for such a government."
— 1898, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, published 1911, →OCLC, page 333:
"The first three college-savings plans stand out for their parsimonious expenses […]"
— 2002 January, “55 great personal-finance ideas”, in Kiplinger's Personal Finance, volume 56, number 1, Washington, D.C.: Kiplinger Washington Editors, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 53, col. 3:
"Statistical methods offer the ability to enforce parsimonious selection of the most influential potential predictors of each gene's state."
— 2006, Richard Bonneau et al., “The Inferelator: An Algorithm for Learning Parsimonious Regulatory Networks from Systems-biology Data Sets de Novo”, in Genome Biology, volume 7, number 5, London: BioMed Central, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, →PMID, →PMCID, page R36:
"They played like a team that was in a hurry to get back to the Premier League. Norwich City had dismantled the most parsimonious defence in the Championship inside the opening quarter of an hour and at the final whistle it was the yellow end, rather than Middlesbrough’s banks of red, where the euphoria could be found."
— 2015 May 25, Daniel Taylor, “Norwich reach Premier League after early blitz sees off Middlesbrough”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 26 May 2015:
Explore More C2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ millionaire refused to buy a new coat, preferring to save every penny.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ millionaire refused to donate to charity.