as in selfish
giving or sharing as little as possible
my brother, who is notoriously miserly, surprised us when he offered to pick up the tab
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of miserly
That’ll teach Assad to give Meatball more than a miserly $40 contribution next time!
—
Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 24 Aug. 2025
McKim, Mead & White quickly became the place for aspiring young architects, who avidly sought jobs there despite miserly salaries.
—Henry Wiencek
july 22, Literary Hub, 22 July 2025
The miserly email account offerings are particularly limiting for larger ventures, and unusual for the category which typically offers unlimited email.
—PC Magazine, 16 June 2025
But the approval process has been slow, the discounts vary from carrier to carrier, the requirements coming from insurers don’t always match the state’s own standards and the savings on offer are, according to some, miserly.
—Calmatters, Mercury News, 30 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for miserly
Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 24 Aug. 2025
McKim, Mead & White quickly became the place for aspiring young architects, who avidly sought jobs there despite miserly salaries.
—Henry Wiencek
july 22, Literary Hub, 22 July 2025
The miserly email account offerings are particularly limiting for larger ventures, and unusual for the category which typically offers unlimited email.
—PC Magazine, 16 June 2025
But the approval process has been slow, the discounts vary from carrier to carrier, the requirements coming from insurers don’t always match the state’s own standards and the savings on offer are, according to some, miserly.
—Calmatters, Mercury News, 30 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for miserly
Recent Examples of Synonyms for miserly
Adjective
-
After sharing his story online, commenters expressed sympathy for the boy’s situation, calling his father’s behavior selfish and neglectful.—
Ashley Vega,
PEOPLE,
27 Oct. 2025
-
Expecting others to adapt to us is a selfish gesture that distorts the spirit of travel.—
Wilson Santiago Burgos,
USA Today,
26 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Those same records also showed that the only other purchases of BAM in the state of Colorado had been from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife agency and the National Parks Service — both of which maintained careful records of any use of the drug, per the indictment.—
Chris Spargo,
PEOPLE,
30 Oct. 2025
-
Be careful when handling debris that may have blown into your yard.—
NC Weather Bot,
Charlotte Observer,
30 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Bobrovsky has been even stingier during Florida’s recent run to back-to-back titles, notching five shutouts over his past six playoff series.—
Julian McKenzie,
New York Times,
26 Oct. 2025
-
Cumdumpster, by contrast, was brusque, peremptory, and stingy with his scores, as if I’d been put on earth to curate pornography for him.—
Daniel Kolitz,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
But Septime Webre’s choreography is supposed to have the air of wild and sometimes frenzied social dancing, of Charlestons and Fox Trots and Black Bottoms, of indulging the glorious excesses of the 1920s before the greedier side of the American Dream comes crashing down a few years later.—
David Lyman,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
30 Oct. 2025
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Which is to say, this isn’t the story of a greedy, materialistic man who suffers a crisis of conscience while trying to pry a priceless treasure away from an uneducated hick who doesn’t know any better.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
29 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Chelsea are famously parsimonious in the transfer market, after all.—
Phil Hay,
New York Times,
21 Aug. 2025
-
Wimpy was a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, lazy, parsimonious, and utterly gluttonous hamburger-wolfing straight man to Popeye.—
Richard Lederer,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
19 July 2025
Adjective
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Every year, a complacent, tightfisted city council turned down the recommendations.—
Margaret Talbot,
The New Yorker,
2 Oct. 2023
-
Kotick played the tightfisted owner of the Oakland A’s.—
Cynthia Littleton,
Variety,
31 May 2023
Adjective
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At least with Derrick, the shallowness seems intentional, if ungenerous.—
Angie Han,
HollywoodReporter,
13 June 2025
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But, even though there was nothing the slightest bit ungracious or ungenerous about her performance, it was felt more like the audience being asked to come to her.—
Chris Willman,
Variety,
26 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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There’s something rare about Swain, who is a young brainiac, but one who has built his business the old-fashioned, pre-quant-trading and Excel models Wall Street way, via charm offensives that weave webs of tight relationships few rivals can match.—
Shawn Tully,
Fortune,
1 Nov. 2025
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Money was tight, especially when Smith’s father, who worked as a machinist after returning from World War II, was on strike.—
Amy Weiss-Meyer,
The Atlantic,
31 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Miserly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/miserly. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.
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