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miserly
in a sentence

show 41 more with this conextual meaning
  • She pictured the wedding guests with mouths too parched to spit, but spitting and cursing all the same, telling one another that the bride was uglier than they remembered, and the big mole on her neck must mean she'd also inherited the miserliness of her father.†   (source)
  • It seemed to rise out of the earth, a huge boxlike intrusion on the pastoral scene, an ugly man-made interruption of heavy brown wood and miserly windows reaching three stories high and covering two acres of land.†   (source)
  • A misericord, a "mercy-killer," the kind of blade that was meant to pierce through the gaps in armor and deliver a killing stroke.†   (source)
  • Ann allows herself a miserly smile.†   (source)
  • Nothing would grow beneath them; the lawn was mostly packed earth with a few hardy sprigs of crabgrass poking forth, and the only plants that bloomed along the north edge of the lot were the hostas, with their miserly buds and their giant, monstrous leaves.†   (source)
  • Suppose I told you that somebody with a name like Landau couldn't be anything but a fat, hook-nosed, miserly pawnbroker out to cheat trusting Gentiles.†   (source)
  • But it can be seen that I do have a genuine and almost miserly interest in worthless objects.†   (source)
  • It's not a question of my being miserly, as you'd like to make out.†   (source)
  • Jacqueline still had a few matches and Jim had a pocket torch almost fully charged but the realization that they were marooned caused them to be miserly.†   (source)
  • A person who is very miserly, for example, will characterize others as penny-pinchers.†   (source)
  • Scrooge was the miserly capitalist in A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.†   (source)
  • There had been a little rain and a fuzz of miserly grass had started up.†   (source)
  • She knew that it would not be easy to submit to his miserliness, or the foolishness of his premature appearance of age, or his maniacal sense of order, or his eagerness to ask for everything and give nothing at all in return, but despite all this, no man was better company because no other man in the world was so in need of love.†   (source)
  • She had a modem spirit that wounded the antiquated sobriety and poorly disguised miserly heart of Fernanda, and that, on the other hand, Aureliano Segundo took pleasure in developing.†   (source)
  • The Smeaths in our rendition of them are charmless, miserly, heavy as dough, boring as white margarine, which we claim they eat for dessert.†   (source)
  • It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision.†   (source)
  • She offers me a miserly smile.†   (source)
  • But still I grew more and more miserly Soon there were so few words chosen that hardly anything could be said, and even casual conversation became difficult.†   (source)
  • …they were, in their astonishing contradictions: the business man who had no business method, and yet had made his million dollars; the frantic antagonist of Capital who had given the loyal service of a lifetime to the thing he denounced; the wastrel son, with the bull vitality of the athlete, a great laugh, animal charm—no more; the musician son, a college rebel, intelligent, fanatic, with a good head for figures; insane miserliness for oneself, lavish expenditure for one's children.†   (source)
  • He is vulnerable to reason there—always a few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness.†   (source)
  • Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on.†   (source)
  • Now, my uncle seemed so miserly that I was struck dumb by this sudden generosity, and could find no words in which to thank him.†   (source)
  • Tiny audits Lena's accounts occasionally, and invests her money for her; and Lena, apparently, takes care that Tiny doesn't grow too miserly.†   (source)
  • Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience.†   (source)
  • In old-fashioned times an "independence" was hardly ever made without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract acid.†   (source)
  • The peasants asked him for some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him of being miserly.†   (source)
  • When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent—but I gave him no encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it.†   (source)
  • Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella's moods, whatever they were.†   (source)
  • —Swilling, I warrant me, at the ale, or playing their juggling tricks at the bedside of some miserly churl.†   (source)
  • How was it that he, Dunstan Cass, who had often heard talk of Marner's miserliness, had never thought of suggesting to Godfrey that he should frighten or persuade the old fellow into lending the money on the excellent security of the young Squire's prospects?†   (source)
  • The old man, now long since dead, had had a large business in his day and was also a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint.†   (source)
  • You are not miserly, I trust?†   (source)
  • Chapter 15 Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful acquaintance.†   (source)
  • He had a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other.†   (source)
  • Of course it was not really because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money.†   (source)
  • About the year 1727, just at the time that earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived near this place a meagre, miserly fellow, of the name of Tom Walker.†   (source)
  • Thorpe then said something in the loud, incoherent way to which he had often recourse, about its being a d—thing to be miserly; and that if people who rolled in money could not afford things, he did not know who could, which Catherine did not even endeavour to understand.†   (source)
  • This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the reproach of being miserly.†   (source)
  • …are real, I say that all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives himself too much of the use of his own); one is reputed generous, one rapacious; one…†   (source)
  • And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice.†   (source)
  • I have said virtue, wealth, and generosity, because a great man who is vicious will be a great example of vice, and a rich man who is not generous will be merely a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it, and not by spending as he pleases, but by knowing how to spend it well.†   (source)
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