different between misery vs niggardly

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser. Doublet of misère.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?z(?)??/
• (General American) enPR: m?z??-r?, m?z?r?, IPA^(key): /?m?z(?)?i/
• Hyphenation: mis?ery

Noun

misery (countable and uncountable, plural miseries)

1. Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
2. (US and Britain, dialects) A bodily ache or pain.
   • 1868, John Vestal Hadley, Seven Months a Prisoner, page 15:

     [...] and I had a misery in my left breast and shoulder. I was hurt, but knew not how or how much.

3. Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
4. (Extreme) poverty.
5. (archaic) greed; avarice.

Synonyms

• see Thesaurus:greed

Derived terms

• put out of one's misery

Related terms

• commiserate
• miser
• miserable

Translations

Anagrams

• Myries

English

Etymology

niggard +? -ly

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?n???dli/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?n???dli/

Adjective

niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)

1. Withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.

   Synonyms: miserly, stingy; see also Thesaurus:stingy

   • 1609, Joseph Hall, (paraphrasing Ambrose? in) "No Peace with Rome", in Josiah Pratt (editor), The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D. D., Vol. IX. Polemical Works, London, (1808), page 57:

     [W]here the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 47

     They were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.

   • 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1998 edition), ?ISBN, p. 186:

     This manifests itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others.

Usage notes

• This term may cause offence, especially in the US, as it is easily confused with niggerly, an adverbial form of the racial slur nigger. The two words are etymologically unrelated.

Translations

Adverb

niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)

1. (now rare) In a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.
   • , New York 2001, p.105:

     because many families are compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little […].

Translations

Further reading

• Controversies about the word "niggardly" on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References