parsimony

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Related to parsimony: principle of parsimony, law of parsimony

par·si·mo·ny

(pär′sə-mō′nē)

1. Unusual or excessive frugality; extreme economy or stinginess.

2. Adoption of the simplest assumption in the formulation of a theory or in the interpretation of data, especially in accordance with the rule of Ockham's razor.

[Middle English parcimony, from Latin parsimōnia, from parsus, past participle of parcere, to spare.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

parsimony

(ˈpɑːsɪmənɪ)

(Banking & Finance) extreme care or reluctance in spending; frugality; niggardliness

[C15: from Latin parcimōnia, from parcere to spare]

parsimonious adj

ˌparsiˈmoniously adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

par•si•mo•ny

(ˈpɑr səˌmoʊ ni)

n.

extreme or excessive economy or frugality; stinginess.

[1400–50; parcimony < Latin parsimōnia, parcimōnia=parsi- (comb. form of parsus, past participle of parcere to economize) or parci- (comb. form of parcus sparing) + -mōnia -mony]

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Noun	1.	parsimony - extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily parsimoniousness, penny-pinching, thrift frugality, frugalness - prudence in avoiding waste
	2.	parsimony - extreme stinginess minginess, niggardliness, niggardness, tightfistedness, meanness, parsimoniousness, closeness, tightness stinginess - a lack of generosity; a general unwillingness to part with money littleness, pettiness, smallness - lack of generosity in trifling matters miserliness - total lack of generosity with money

parsimony

noun (Formal) meanness, tightness, penny-pinching (informal), frugality, nearness (informal), stinginess, miserliness, niggardliness, minginess (Brit. informal) Due to the parsimony of the local council, only one machine was built.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

parcimonie

parsimonia parsimonioso

parsimony

[ˈpɑːsɪmənɪ] N → parquedad f, excesiva frugalidad f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

parsimony

n → Geiz m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

parsimony

[ˈpɑːsɪmənɪ] n → parsimonia

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

References in classic literature ?

There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the "parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.

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Parsimony is one of the best, and yet is not innocent; for it withholdeth men from works of liberality and charity.

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The security of all would thus be subjected to the parsimony, improvidence, or inability of a part.

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Robinson leaned over and whispered significantly, "The missionaries always used to be entertained at the brick house; your grand- father never would let 'em sleep anywheres else when he was alive." She meant this for a stab at Miss Miranda's parsimony, remembering the four spare chambers, closed from January to December; but Rebecca thought it was intended as a suggestion.

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Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.

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If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he would have turned them to good account, and might have achieved for himself a very considerable influence and competency.

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What with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the three young ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself, Mr Tite Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day rather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he always attributed to the country's parsimony. For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one day at the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions awaited that gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a waiting room, and a fire-proof passage where the Department seemed to keep its wind.

As it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his gentlemanly residence extremely inconvenient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a public servant, at the door of the country, and adduced it as another instance of the country's parsimony.

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A little later Norton reminded them of Hamilton's Law of Parsimony, the application of which they immediately claimed for every reasoning process of theirs.

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Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread his features with a lavish hand.

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Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk pile; but the world-old parsimony of government retained her in active service, and sent two hundred men to sea in her, with myself, a mere boy, in command of her, to patrol thirty from Iceland to the Azores.

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He had not come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief object.