Cheapskate. Means being tight. Where did the saying come from?

"cheapskate" first appeared in English around 1896. Authorities are also fairly certain that this kind of "skate" is not related to the "skate" fish, which resembles a ray and takes its name from the Old Norse word "skata." The other common kind of "skate" (as in roller-skate or ice-skate) is also not related to "cheapskate," and comes from an Old French word ("eschasse") meaning "stilts." Go figure.

The most plausible theory about the "skate" in "cheapskate" traces it to the Scots word "skate," a term of contempt which apparently also crops up in a slightly different form in the archaic term "blatherskite," meaning a person who blathers, or babbles nonsense. If this theory is true, "cheapskate" would thus translate as essentially "stingy creep," which makes sense.

Cheapskate Meaning

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Cheapskate. Means being tight. Where did the saying come from?

Talking to a friend in the USA about different meanings to being tight with money, hamfisted, deep pockets etc. But couldn't work out where sheapskate came from, any idea?

cheapskate

"miserly person," 1896, from cheap (q.v.), second element perhaps from Amer.Eng. slang skate "worn-out horse" (1894), of uncertain origin.

Word and phrase origins.

This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.

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