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Frugal Has Surprising Roots
Folks who are frugal tend to frown on the frivolous frittering away of the fruits of their labor, so it may surprise you to learn that frugal comes from the Latin word frūx, which means, among other things, “fruit.” Perhaps because of fruit’s financial value, from frūx followed frūgī, an adjective meaning “deserving, sober, or thrifty,” which finagled its way into Late Latin in the form of frūgālis (“not given to excess; temperate, sober, simple”), then Middle French, and finally English, as the familiar frugal. Today, frugal is used to describe things that reflect a fastidious dedication to foregoing the fancy, as in “he insists on a frugal diet of fungi and fava beans.” Frugal can also describe a person, usually with respect to money, but one can be frugal with other things, too, such as words that start with the letter f, though we certainly haven’t been in this paragraph.
Examples of frugal in a Sentence
Johanna McGeary, Time, 25 Oct. 2004
Like frugal cooks everywhere, Cajun cooks from generations past found plenty of ways to use every part of the animals they raised.
—Jeremy Sauer, Cook's Country, June 1995
In a frugal white frame house of tiny rooms that shook with every passing freight train, five boys of German immigrant background had grown up at the turn of the twentieth century.
—Robert D. Kaplan, An Empire Wilderness, 1988
a frugal meal of bread and cheese
by being frugal, the family is able to stretch its monthly budget
Hank Tucker, Forbes.com, 25 Apr. 2025
For frugal travelers, that means both more options for flights — and more opportunities for deals.
—Nerdwallet, Mercury News, 28 Mar. 2025
There is so much in the ether telling us not to be frugal.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes, 18 Jan. 2025
Reasonable people can be reasonably frugal.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes, 18 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for frugal
Cite this Entry
“Frugal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frugal. Accessed 11 May. 2025.
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