Word.ws English Dictionary

penny-pinch

penny-pinch verb: to be very parsimonious or stingy.

Verb

penny-pinch (third-person singular simple present penny-pinches, present participle penny-pinching, simple past and past participle penny-pinched)

  1. To be very parsimonious or stingy.

Forms of penny-pinch

third-person singular presentpenny-pinches
present participlepenny-pinching
past participlepenny-pinched
pastpenny-pinched

Origin of penny-pinch

Back-formation from penny-pinching.

Questions about penny-pinch

What does penny-pinch mean?
Penny-pinch means to be very parsimonious or stingy.
What part of speech is penny-pinch?
Penny-pinch is a verb.
What is the past tense of penny-pinch?
The past tense of penny-pinch is penny-pinched.

Words near penny-pinch in the dictionary

  1. penny-grass
  2. penny-in-the-slot machine
  3. penny-in-the-slot machines
  4. penny-pig
  5. penny-pigs
  6. penny-pinch
  7. penny-pinched
  8. penny-pincher
  9. penny-pinchers
  10. penny-pinches
  11. penny-pinching

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penny-pinch (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.

Last updated:

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