Word.ws English Dictionary

tighten the pursestrings

tighten the pursestrings 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 pursestrings

third-person singular presenttightens the pursestrings
present participletightening the pursestrings
past participletightened the pursestrings
pasttightened the pursestrings

Questions about tighten the pursestrings

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

Words near tighten the pursestrings in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tighten the pursestrings (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.

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