penny-pinching
"penny-pinching" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“penny-pinching” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - reluctant to spend money; close-fisted
Corpus desk
Index EN-penny-pinching · penny-pinching · English
penny-pinching · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 14 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | penny-pinching |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “penny-pinching” in English
Rare enough to double-check
penny-pinching is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "reluctant to spend money; close-fisted".
Zero misspellings are on record for penny-pinching in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From pinchpenny. The correct English form is penny-pinching, spelled P-E-N-N-Y---P-I-N-C-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1reluctant to spend money; close-fisted
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how penny-pinching appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If there is an overall lesson, it is that train quality should be seen as part of the battle against climate change, with penny-pinching specifications robustly opposed as a false economy.
Etymology
From pinchpenny.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.