Scrooge
/skruːdʒ/noun
A miserly, stingy, or unfriendly person.
Did you know?The word became famous through Dickens’s 1843 character Ebenezer Scrooge, and the name’s exact origin is uncertain, though it likely echoes older English forms associated with squeezing, scrunching, or being stingy.
Etymological Timeline
Early 19th Century
English
Scrooge
“A fictional miserly man, later a common noun for a miser”
1843
English
Ebenezer Scrooge
“Charles Dickens’s miser in A Christmas Carol”
19th Century
English
scrooge
“A stingy, miserly person”
Uncertain / likely earlier English dialect
English
scrouge / scruge
“Possible older forms suggesting squeezing, crowding, or being stingy”