Those who are frugal are unwilling to (lavishly) enjoy the fruits of their labors, so it may surprise you to learn that frugal ultimately derives from the Latin frux, meaning "fruit" or "value," and is even a distant cousin of the Latin word for "enjoy" (frui). The connection between fruit or value and restraint was first made in Latin; the Middle French word that English speakers eventually adopted as frugal came from the Latin adjective frugalis, a frux descendant meaning "virtuous" or "frugal." Although English speakers adopted frugal by the 16th century, they were already lavishly supplied with earlier coinages to denote the idea, including sparing and thrifty.
economical stresses prudent management, lack of wastefulness, and use of things to their best advantage.
an economical health-care plan
Examples of frugal in a Sentence
His meals are the frugal fare of the poor: tea, bread, yogurt, a bit of cheese, vegetables.—Johanna McGeary, Time, 25 Oct. 2004Like 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 1995In 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
Recent Examples on the WebOf the handful of tools MultiPlan offers insurers, Data iSight consistently makes the most frugal recommendations, typically resulting in the highest fees.—Chris Hamby, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2024 The History Of Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate Turns out, frozen orange juice concentrate—particularly the beloved Minute Maid variety—became insanely popular in the 1950s and 1960s, when frugal house-making and frozen foods reigned supreme.—Kaitlyn Yarborough, Southern Living, 20 Mar. 2024 See all Example Sentences for frugal
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'frugal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French, borrowed from Late Latin frūgālis "not given to excess, temperate, sober, simple" (early Medieval Latin also "thrifty, sparing"), back-formation from Latin frūgālior, frūgālissimus and frūgāliter, comparative and superlative degrees and adverbial derivative (with the suffix -āl--al entry 1) of frūgī "(of people, especially slaves) having merit or worth, deserving, sober, thrifty," "(of things) moderate, sober," predicative dative of frūg-, frūx (usually in plural) "edible produce of plants, fruit, crops, grain," root noun from the base of fruor, fruī "to enjoy the produce or proceeds of, derive advantage from" — more at fruit entry 1
Note:
The dative noun frūgī must originally have been used with a modifying adjective in a construction such as esse frūgī bonae "to be capable of giving a good harvest or good return," first applied to things, then extended to persons.
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