Synonyms: scrimpy, meager, meagerly, meagre, stingy
Definition: deficient in amount or quality or extent
Usage: meager resources; meager fare
Similar words: bare, scanty, spare
Definition: lacking in amplitude or quantity
Usage: a bare livelihood; a scanty harvest; a spare diet
Similar words: exiguous
Definition: extremely scanty
Usage: an exiguous budget
Similar words: hand-to-mouth
Definition: providing only bare essentials
Usage: a hand-to-mouth existence
Similar words: hardscrabble
Definition: barely satisfying a lower standard
Usage: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life
Similar words: paltry, miserable, measly
Definition: contemptibly small in amount
Usage: a measly tip; the company donated a miserable $100 for flood relief; a paltry wage; almost depleted his miserable store of dried beans
Synonyms: ungenerous, stingy
Definition: unwilling to spend
Usage: she practices economy without being stingy; an ungenerous response to the appeal for funds
Definition: (used of sums of money) so small in amount as to deserve contempt
Similar words: cheap, chinchy, chintzy
Definition: embarrassingly stingy
Similar words: cheeseparing, close, near, penny-pinching, skinny
Definition: giving or spending with reluctance
Usage: our cheeseparing administration; very close (or near) with his money; a penny-pinching miserly old man
Similar words: closefisted, tightfisted, hardfisted
Definition: unwilling to part with money
Similar words: grudging, niggardly, scrimy
Definition: petty or reluctant in giving or spending
Usage: a niggardly tip
Similar words: mingy, miserly, mean, tight
Definition: (used of persons or behavior) characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity
Usage: a mean person; he left a miserly tip
Similar words: parsimonious, penurious
Definition: excessively unwilling to spend
Usage: parsimonious thrift relieved by few generous impulses; lived in a most penurious manner--denying himself every indulgence