Word.ws English Dictionary

bean-counter

bean-counter is the alternative form of bean counter.

Meaning of bean counter

Noun

bean counter (plural bean counters)

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, mildly) A person who is excessively interested in controlling or reducing expenses, increasing profits, or in quantitative details in general.
    • As any good bean counter will tell you, it costs money to treat people at a hospital.1985 August 2, “Editorial: Sniffing at DOC health costs”, in Gainsville Sun, retrieved 13 Sep 2009, page 14A

Forms of bean-counter

pluralbean-counters

Questions about bean-counter

What is bean-counter the alternative form of?
Bean-counter is the alternative form of bean counter.

Words near bean-counter in the dictionary

  1. bean-cakes
  2. bean-caper
  3. bean-capers
  4. bean-cod
  5. bean-cods
  6. bean-counter
  7. bean-counters
  8. bean-crake
  9. bean-dolphin
  10. bean-dolphins
  11. bean-eater

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bean-counter (page history and authors); bean counter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bean-counter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bean-counter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.