scrooge meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

scrooge

noun

/skɹuːd͡ʒ/

Etymology From the character Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol.

A miserly person; a person with an excessive dislike of spending money or other resources.

A person who is grumpy about the Christmas holidays.

verb

Etymology From the character Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol.

To behave in a greedy or miserly way.

Mr. Chairman, $6 million is 15 times more than what the President earns and 30 times more than what a Cabinet Secretary earns. The Christmas Eve announcement of these bonuses was greeted by one commentator by saying the taxpayers got scrooged.2010 January 22, Committee on Financial Services, COMPENSATION IN THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY:
He went back to live in Clayton with dad and tearfully explained to him about Aunt Eliza and her mean, scrooging ways.2010, Roy Howarth, Escape is a rare triumph:

1 more example

[…]corporations scrooging their way out of paying taxes.2012, Sarra Manning, Adorkable:

verb

Etymology Variant of scrouge.

UK, US, Dialectal To crush or press; to squeeze (past, into, together, etc.).

So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, then he scrooged again[.]1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, London: Wordsworth Classics, published 1993, page 12:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.