Word.ws English Dictionary

tighten the purse-strings

tighten the purse-strings is the alternative form of tighten the purse strings.

Meaning of tighten the purse strings

Verb

tighten the purse strings (third-person singular simple present tightens the purse strings, present participle tightening the purse strings, simple past and past participle tightened the purse strings)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To decrease spending or disallow increased spending; to increase control of spending.
    • ...would have the opposite effect entirely, and would tighten the purse-strings of capitalists and the employers of...1894, New Zealand Parliament, Parliamentary debates, page 710

Forms of tighten the purse-strings

third-person singular presenttightens the purse-strings
present participletightening the purse-strings
past participletightened the purse-strings
pasttightened the purse-strings

Questions about tighten the purse-strings

What is tighten the purse-strings the alternative form of?
Tighten the purse-strings is the alternative form of tighten the purse strings.

Words near tighten the purse-strings in the dictionary

  1. tighted
  2. tighten
  3. tighten down
  4. tighten one's belt
  5. tighten the purse strings
  6. tighten the purse-strings
  7. tighten the pursestrings
  8. tighten up
  9. tightenable
  10. tightened
  11. tightened down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tighten the purse-strings (page history and authors); tighten the purse strings (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: “tighten the purse-strings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tighten_the_purse-strings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.