The „clenched“ part of this word refers to „clenched fist“ This will help you remember the meaning of tightwad when you imagine a person firmly closing their fist around a pile of money and abandoning it for no one or anything. A tight wad takes the simple frugal or careful handling of money to a whole new level. It`s not that tightwads are poor; They simply hate parting with their money, even if it`s just one dollar. A tightwad is someone who avoids spending money, like a parent who packs garbage from the basement in used wrapping paper and gives it to you, even though he or she might afford to buy you a nice birthday present. I want to have the old tight leg cleaned for a decent roller while I was at it! I asked him for a drink, and he couldn`t see it, the tightwad! He`d been called many things — usurer, skinflint, tightwad, pussyfoot — but he`d never been called a flirt before. This is a difficult situation for a class that is constitutionally narrow, often wise. She claims to be generous, but in reality, she is a terrible tight stuffing. Join our community to access the latest language learning and assessment tips from Oxford University Press! Find out which words work together and create more natural English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Find the answers online with Practical English Usage, your go-to guide to problems in English.
