Definition of "niggard" in English

adjective

1. Sparing; stinting; parsimonious.

2. Miserly or stingy.

noun

1. A miser or stingy person; a skinflint.

   • ‘No niggard are you, Éomer,’ said Aragorn, ‘to give thus to Gondor the fairest thing in your realm!’

2. A false bottom in a grate, used for saving fuel.

   • 1833, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Godolphin It was evening: he ordered a fire and lights; and, leaning his face on his hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky upbreakings of the flame through the bars of the niggard and contracted grate […]
   • 1851, From a catalog of the Great Exhibition Cooking apparatus, adapted for an opening eight feet wide, by five feet high, and containing an open-fire roasting range, with sliding spit-racks and winding cheek or niggard;

verb

1. (intransitive) To hoard; to act stingily.