SKINFLINT

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Dr. Goodword
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SKINFLINT

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:35 pm

• skinflint •

Pronunciation: skin-flint • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A miser, a niggardly person, a tightwad, a person so greedy he would try to get skin from a flint.

Notes: Today's Good Word may be the longest word in English that is pronounced the way it is spelled (see Pronunciation). The now famous poem by Gerald Trenite The Chaos reflects the more usual relationships between English pronunciation and spelling. In other respects, though, this word is not alone in the world; it possesses an adjective, skinflinty which boasts an adverb, skinflintily. and a noun, skinflintiness.

In Play: For some reason, skinflintiness is most often associated with old people: "That old skinflint has the first nickel he ever earned." That may be the result of the ability to manage money coming later in life. Whatever the reason, it is unfair; skinflints come in all sizes, genders, and ages: "Is my baby already such a skinflint that she won't share her cookie with her daddy?" You guess the age here.

Word History: The first component of today's word, skin, was borrowed from Norwegian skinn, cousin of Danish skind. It goes back to Proto-Indo-European sek- "to cut" plus a suffix -n. With a suffix -s, it became Old English seax [sayks] "knife", which today is zax "hatchet for trimming roof shingles". With both -s and -n, this root may be responsible for Saxon [sæksên] "people with the knives", though this derivation is not without its problems. In Latin the root emerged in secare "to cut", the root at the root of a large series of English borrowings, including secant, intersect, insect, and section. Oh, yes: English sickle is also a derivative of the same root. (Let us all be grateful that Larry Brady, our Stargazer in the Agora, is not a skinflint with his words, for it was he who suggested this one for today.)
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gailr
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Re: SKINFLINT

Postby gailr » Tue Jun 06, 2006 12:31 am

Let us all be grateful that Larry Brady, our Stargazer in the Agora, is not a skinflint with his words, for it was he who suggested this one for today.
Bartleby.com says
skinlfint: A pinch-farthing; a niggard. In the French, “pince-maille.” Maille is an old copper coin
hmmm, it's like that French-speaking Stargzer has a different word for everything... :)

-gailr

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Re: SKINFLINT

Postby Stargzer » Tue Jun 06, 2006 1:23 am

. . . hmmm, it's like that French-speaking Stargzer has a different word for everything... :)

-gailr
Courtesy of SystraNet.com:

كلّ شيء!
Alles!
Tout!
Alles!
Όλα!
Tutto!
すべて!
모두!
Tudo!
Все!
一切!
¡Todo!
Allt!
一切!
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Huny
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re:skinflint

Postby Huny » Tue Jun 06, 2006 2:26 am

Everything??.. Huh, stargzer? Are you chatty in all those languages?? 8)
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:05 pm

Alas, No, only a smattering of French, but I can order a beer in Spanish with "Please" and "Thank you very much." I got all the translations from an online translation site, www.systranet.com . It's translations are not always faithfull . . .
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Huny
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Postby Huny » Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:18 pm

Those translators can make one see the true meaning behind the saying.."Something got lost in the translation".
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.


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