Word.ws English Dictionary

chinsy

chinsy is the alternative spelling of chintzy.

Meaning of chintzy

Adjective (1)

chintzy (comparative chintzier, superlative chintziest)

  1. Of or decorated with chintz.
    • This time she showed him into her living room instead of the kitchen. It was a little chintzier than it would have been if she'd actually owned the place, but he seemed to like it and sank comfortably into a loose-covered, old-fashioned, square-cornered sofa.1995, David Ambrose, chapter 66, in Mother of God, London: Macmillan Publishers, →ISBN
  2. (figuratively) Tastelessly showy; cheap, gaudy, or tacky.
    • "Tea!" she said in a tiny voice. / "Wake up! It's nearly five." / Oh! Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness, / Half dead and half alive.1931, John Betjeman, “Death in Leamington”, in Earl of Birkenhead [Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead], compiler, John Betjeman's Collected Poems, London: John Murray, published...

Adjective (2)

chintzy (comparative chintzier or more chintzy, superlative chintziest or most chintzy)

  1. (figuratively) Excessively reluctant to spend; miserly, stingy.
    • Is there a place for being prudent, frugal, and thrifty with the one we love in marriage? Sure. But only when careful ways are outweighed by generosity to overflowing. […] Think of a time when you were being a bit more chintzy with your partner than you needed to be. What was the result and was it...2000, Les Parrott, Leslie Parrott, “A Penny Saved is Sometimes Chintzy”, in Meditations on Proverbs for Couples, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, →ISBN, page 63
    Synonyms:
    as tight as Dick's hatband, cheap, cheeseparing, close, close as wax, close-fisted, illiberal, mean, miserable, miserly

Forms of chinsy

comparativemore chinsy
superlativemost chinsy

Questions about chinsy

What is chinsy the alternative spelling of?
Chinsy is the alternative spelling of chintzy.

Words near chinsy in the dictionary

  1. chinstrap penguin
  2. chinstrap penguins
  3. chinstrapped
  4. chinstraps
  5. Chinsurah
  6. chinsy
  7. chint
  8. Chinta Valley
  9. Chinteni
  10. chinthe
  11. chinthes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chinsy (page history and authors); chintzy (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: “chinsy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinsy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.