lésiner
French, verb/le.zi.ne/
lésiner is spelled L-É-S-I-N-E-R (7 letters) and appears about once in every 7 million words in written French, the 88,451st most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Lésiner is a French verb meaning “to skimp, to overly limit one's spending, to be frugal to an excessive degree” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Agir avec lésinerie ; économiser à l’extrême”.
What does lésiner mean in English?
verb
- 1
to skimp, to overly limit one's spending, to be frugal to an excessive degree
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Agir avec lésinerie ; économiser à l’extrême. 2. Faire preuve d’une retenue excessive ; manquer de zèle lors de l’accomplissement d’une tâche quelconque.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of lésiner
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- lésinant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- lésiné participle past
- lésine first-person indicative present
- lésines indicative present second-person
- lésinons first-person indicative plural
- lésinez indicative plural present
- lésinent indicative plural present
- lésinais first-person imperfect indicative
- lésinait imperfect indicative singular
- lésinions first-person imperfect indicative
- lésiniez imperfect indicative plural
- lésinaient imperfect indicative plural
- lésinai first-person historic indicative
- lésinas historic indicative past
- lésina historic indicative past
- lésinâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce lésiner?
- /le.zi.ne/
- \le.zi.ne\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to lésiner
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is lésiner in French?
lésiner appears about once in every 7 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).