Thriftiness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being careful with money and resources by avoiding unnecessary spending and waste
2. The attribute of exercising careful financial management by prioritizing savings and minimizing wasteful expenditure
3. The characteristic of demonstrating prudence in financial decisions by actively avoiding lavish spending and focusing on saving resources

Etymology: Thriftiness is a plain formation: the adjective "thrifty" with the suffix "-ness" attached, which turns a quality into a noun. The adjective itself is the older building block. "Thrift" first meant prosperity or success, and "thrifty" was once a word for things that were thriving or flourishing before it came to mean careful with money. The noun's parts have ancient roots. The "-ness" ending descends from an Old English suffix that formed abstract nouns from adjectives, and it has been productive in English ever since, so new quality-words keep appearing with it. Because "thriftiness" is a straightforward suffixed noun, its history is mostly the history of its base word. Its surface meaning, the careful management of money, is the latest layer of a word that once described general good fortune.

Synonyms: frugality, economy, savings, stinginess, parsimony

Antonyms: extravagance, wastefulness, profligacy, spending, indulgence