frugality

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French frugalité,^[2][3][4][5] recorded from the 14th century,^[4] from Latin frūgālitās (“thriftiness, temperance”),^[3][2][4][5] from frūgālis (“thrifty”),^[3][2][5] from frūgī (“useful, proper, economical”),^[2][5] originally the dative of frūx (“fruit, produce, value”).^[2][5][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives the English noun directly from the Latin one,^[6] and Hoad allows either source.^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged explains frūgālis as a back-formation from the adverb frūgāliter,^[6] and Hoad from the comparative frūgālior.^[7] Etymonline takes the root to be Proto-Indo-European *bhrug- (“to enjoy”),^[4] and Klein relates the Latin noun to fruor (“to enjoy”) and frūctus (“fruit”), the source of fruit.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Moderate or sparing spending or use of goods: 1531, in Thomas Elyot's The Boke Named the Governour.^[3][2] Etymonline likewise dates it to the 1530s.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word's distant source meant fruit or produce: in Latin the sense passed from "useful" to "profitable" to "economical".^[4][8] The noun is recorded in English before the adjective frugal, which Barnhart dates to 1598 and thinks possibly a back-formation from it.^[2] The OED has the construction frugality of something from 1700, in Dryden, and occasional uses for wealth gathered by economy, and in the plural for frugal ways of living or frugal fare, from 1725.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "thrift; parsimony; good husbandry", quoting Bacon on drinking water as a saving.^[9] Ruskin, in Fors Clavigera, called it the disposition to save what one has "without any desire to gain more".^[4]

Timeline

• 1531 – the quality of being frugal; sparing use of goods.^[3][2]
• 1700 – with of: frugality of something.^[3]
• 1725 – wealth gathered by economy; in the plural, frugal ways of living, frugal fare.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being frugal; careful and sparing use of money, food or other resources; thrift: Years of frugality paid for the farm.^[3][6][9]

Related words

• frugal
• fruit
• fruition
• fructify

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.