Word.ws English Dictionary

tightwad

tightwad noun: one who is stingy; someone overly cautious or defensive with money.

Noun

tightwad (plural tightwads)

  1. (colloquial, derogatory) One who is stingy; someone overly cautious or defensive with money.
    • That tightwad would drive ten miles to save a few cents on gas.
    • He gulps down the hot coffee and leaves a nice fat tip. No one can say he's a tightwad.1966, Burt Blechman, Stations, published 1969, page 40
    Synonyms:
    frugal, miser, skinflint

Proper noun capitalized: Tightwad

Tightwad

  1. A village in Missouri.

Synonyms of tightwad

Antonyms

Forms of tightwad

pluraltightwads

Origin of tightwad

From tight + wad.

Words formed from tightwad

Questions about tightwad

What does tightwad mean?
Tightwad means one who is stingy; someone overly cautious or defensive with money.
What part of speech is tightwad?
Tightwad can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of tightwad?
The plural of tightwad is tightwads.

Words near tightwad in the dictionary

  1. tightropes
  2. tightroping
  3. tights
  4. tightsome
  5. tightum
  6. tightwad
  7. tightwaddish
  8. tightwads
  9. tightwire
  10. tightwires
  11. tighty whiteys

Source and license

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