miser

Miser by Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia

A miser, cheapskate, snipe-snout, penny pincher, piker, scrooge, skinflint or tightwad is a person who is reluctant to spend money, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities. Old people were commonly portrayed as being miserly but this stereotype is less common since support programs such as Social Security have resulted in less poverty in old age.^[1]

Freud attributed the development of miserly behaviour to toilet training in childhood. Some infants would attempt to retain the contents of their bowels and this would result in the development of an anal retentive personality that would attempt to retain their wealth and possessions in later life.^[2]

In traditional Chinese Confucianism, those who were concerned with money – landlords and merchants – were thought to be a low order of society, inferior to the peasant farmers who tilled the soil. They were condemned in allegory as misers and officials would punish such behaviour in times of famine.^[3]

There are numerous folk sayings about miserly people such as the Cockney, "E's so tight 'is arse squeaks" and the Yorkshire, "He's a snipe-snout; he'll part wi' nowght."^[4]

Death and the Miser by Hieronymus Bosch in 1494

Famous misers in history

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• Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-born industrialist, was notoriously thrifty and was mocked as a miser but after the Homestead dispute he became a great philanthropist.^[5]

• The Collyer brothers of New York City were also hoarders and earned notoriety for living in a filthy, booby-trapped home.

• Ephraim Lópes Pereira d'Aguilar, 2nd Baron d'Aguilar was an eccentric Jewish Portuguese nobleman who lived a life of privation, while amassing a secret fortune.

• Hetty Green of New York City was considered the world's wealthiest woman in 1916, and was known as the "Witch of Wall Street".

• John Elwes (aka "Elwes the Miser"), was a noted British eccentric and miser, believed to be the inspiration for the character of "Ebenezer Scrooge" in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.^[6]

• Joseph Nollekens was a Londoner generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century, but was also a notorious miser.

• Michelangelo made a fortune from his painting but denied himself all comforts and slept with his boots on.^[7]

• Yossele the Holy Miser, a Polish Jew, is a famous miser of Jewish folklore.

Misers in fiction

Ebenezer Scrooge encounters Ignorance and Want in A Christmas Carol

• Ebenezer Balfour – antagonist in the novel Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson^[8]
• Cotta – in Epistle to Bathurst by Alexander Pope^[8]
• Henry Earlforward – in Arnold Bennet's novel Riceyman Steps^[8]
• Felix Grandet – father of the eponymous title character in the novel Eugénie Grandet by Balzac^[8]
• Harpagon – a lead character in Molière's play The Miser^[8]
• Malbecco – "a cancred crabbed Carle" in Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene^[8]
• Silas Marner – title character of George Eliot's novel Silas Marner^[8]
• Mr. Prokharchin – title character of the short story Mr. Prokharchin by Fyodor Dostoyevsky^[9]
• Ebenezer Scrooge – lead character of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens^[8]
• Shylock – Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare^[8]
• Volpone – title character of the Ben Jonson comedy Volpone^[8]

As a general example, in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, misers are put in the fourth circle of hell, along with spendthrifts. They roll weights representing their wealth, constantly colliding and quarreling.^[10]

See also

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Look up miser in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Compulsive hoarding
• Frugality
• Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
• Seven deadly sins

References