Curmuggion

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A stingy, grumpy person who is reluctant to spend money and quick to complain about others
2. An old-fashioned term for a miserly and surly individual who resents generosity and dislikes company
3. Someone who is niggardly with money and cantankerous in disposition, often seen as a bitter old skinflint

Etymology: Curmuggion is an old spelling variant of "curmudgeon," the word for a stubborn, ill-tempered, or miserly person. It turns up in English writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the spelling had not yet settled. The "-uggion" ending shows how freely writers spelled the word as they heard it. Nobody knows for certain where the root comes from. A popular theory links it to the Anglo-Norman phrase "cuer mechant," meaning "wicked heart," but dictionaries treat this as unproven, and it may be a folk explanation invented after the fact. The earliest meaning was closer to "miser" or "niggard" than to the general grouch it became later.