Scrimp
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A pinching miser; a niggard.
- 1 To make too small or short; to shortchange. sometimes, transitive, with-on
"to scrimp the pattern of a coat"
- 2 subsist on a meager allowance wordnet
- 3 To limit or straiten; to put on short allowance. transitive
"For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler."
- 4 To be frugal, whether to a reasonable and wise extent or to a miserly and unwise extent. intransitive
"“Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last, we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve Cliquot!”"
- 1 Short; scanty; curtailed.
Example
More examples"The group had to scrimp, connive, and hustle in order to get by."
Etymology
From Scots scrimp (“meager”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrimpen (“to shrivel up, wrinkle”), from Old Dutch *scrimpan, from Frankish *skrimpan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrink”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”), related to Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and sċrincan (“to shrivel up”). Doublet of shrink, shrimp, and shrim.
Related phrases
More for "scrimp"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.