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Frugal   /frˈugəl/   Listen
Frugal

adjective
1.
Avoiding waste.  Synonyms: economical, scotch, sparing, stinting.  "An economical shopper" , "A frugal farmer" , "A frugal lunch" , "A sparing father and a spending son" , "Sparing in their use of heat and light" , "Stinting in bestowing gifts" , "Thrifty because they remember the great Depression" , "'scotch' is used only informally"



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"Frugal" Quotes from Famous Books



... of which the doors and windows were bolted on the outside, he flung open the shutters of the glassless windows, lit a candle, and prepared to eat a frugal meal. From the saddlebags he took bread, eggs, chocolate, sardines, biscuits and apples. With a mixture of permanganate of potash, tea and cold water from the well, if the puddle at the bottom of a deep hole could ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... The frugal and laborious manner in which the great live, the little attention which is paid to the vain and ridiculous prejudice of marrying below rank; the ancient policy of giving distinction to men and not to families, by attaching nobility only to employments and ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... women industrious and frugal, and a loving husband spends lavishly on a loved wife and children, though ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... parterres bordered with high box hedges. The mansion had an air of antiquated dignity, but it had seen its best days, and evidently sheltered a shrunken household. Mrs. Hudson, Rowland was sure, might be seen in the garden of a morning, in a white apron and a pair of old gloves, engaged in frugal horticulture. Roderick's studio was behind, in the basement; a large, empty room, with the paper peeling off the walls. This represented, in the fashion of fifty years ago, a series of small fantastic landscapes of a hideous pattern, and the young sculptor had presumably torn it away in great ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... His frugal meal finished, he sat meditatively smoking his pipe by the glowing embers of his generous fire. But no light came to him. Practically no one lived near. The few who did were as honest as daylight. He had not an enemy on earth so far as he knew; and yet he realized now that the good condition ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... stumps of trees; wild roots, wild fruit, and goat's milk constituted a daily fare very little inferior to what he had had in the village. This is no exaggeration. You have to see the peasants in certain parts of Varenne to form an idea of the frugal diet on which a man can live and keep in good health. In the midst of these men of stoical habits all round him, Patience was still exceptional. Never had wine reddened his lips, and bread had seemed to him a superfluity. Besides, the doctrine of Pythagoras was not wholly displeasing to him; ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... Mobile stands the small settlement of the Pasca-Ogoulas; which consists only of a few Canadians, lovers of tranquillity, which they prefer to all the advantages they could reap from commerce. They content themselves with a frugal country life, and never go to New ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... no longer glow, And hills their lengthen'd shadows throw, The hind collects his tools, and carols gay; Then spreads his board with frugal fare, Such as those homely acorns were, Which all revere, yet casting them away, Let those, who pleasure can enjoy, In cheerfulness their hours employ; While I, of all earth's wretches most unblest, Whether the sun fierce darts his beams, Whether the moon more mildly gleams, Taste no delight, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... prosperity. The marriage will take place very soon; after which you can come and claim your own, when it will be too late for Dunroe to retract. Here, for the present, is a check for two hundred and fifty; but, Tom, you must be frugal and cautious in its expenditure. Don't suffer yourself to break out: always keep a firm hold of the helm. Get a book in which you will mark down your expenses; for, mark me, you must render a strict account of this money. On the day after to-morrow you must dine with Lucy ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... their morning work, got their frugal breakfast over, put their room in order, and sat down to their daily occupation—Hannah before her loom, Nora beside her spinning-wheel. The clatter of the loom, the whir of the wheel, admitted of no conversation between the workers; so Hannah worked, as usual, in perfect silence, and Nora, who ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Blodget's Interest, for which we are to pay him his outsetts. We are in hopes that we shall be able to carry on the Business better without than with him. * * We must beg you would be as frugal as possible in the laying out of any money that benefits will not be immediately reaped from, and that you will make as large remittances as you possibly can to enable us to discharge the Company's debt to Blodget, for we shall endeavor ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... habits and conduct of these children of bondage were not of the most exemplary character. Each family, who wished it, had a small lot of ground set apart as a garden in some district bordering upon the mountains, where those who were frugal and industrious cultivated yams, cassava, plantains, and other varieties of vegetables or fruit, which were sold to managers of estates, or carried to the nearest town on a Sunday and sold in the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... find lodgings at a weekly or monthly price more suited to his means than those which he had temporarily taken at the Adams House on his arrival there the previous evening. Always frugal in regard to his personal expenditures, he knew that, in order to eke out the full term with his scanty resources, he must carry his habitual thrift to its fullest extent. He therefore scoured the town for apartments, aided by references from Professor Cochran, principal of the Normal, and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... which the visitor himself is to act. And first, he is to avoid the two extremes of being too early or too late, so as neither to surprise his friend unawares or unprovided, nor detain him too long in expectation. Orthrius, who hath nothing to do, disturbs your rest in a morning; and the frugal Chronophidus, lest he should waste some minutes of his precious time, is ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... up a piece of blubber, and went out of the cave to enjoy his frugal breakfast while acting sentinel. The others, sitting down on their respective bearskins, ate and consulted hastily. The consultation was of little use, for they were utterly helpless, and the breakfast was not ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... of work that I knew I could do. I got it, and did it as well as I knew how to. I hide my face even now, for very shame, as I confess that it was the first time, for years, that I had done as well as I knew how to do. I got my pay, and ate an honestly earned, though frugal supper, that evening. I think you will understand me when I tell you that I went to bed happier that night than I had before for a long time. The "Other Fellow" said, "It is all right, Old Boy! Stand by!" I did "stand by," and I have been ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... widely diffused, has facilitated the production of a vast population in the most abject state of poverty, driven to expose children by want, and liable at intervals to destructive famines. In modern Europe, the checks appear in the most various forms; in Switzerland and Norway a frugal population in small villages sometimes instinctively understands the principle of population, and exhibits the 'moral restraint,' while in England the poor-laws are producing a mass of hopeless and inert pauperism. Consideration of these various cases, and ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... an Italian fruit and cake stand reminded him that he was hungry, so he invested a nickel in a frugal supply of gingerbread, which he munched as he stood ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... with a hollow beyond it. Crossing over the ridge, we descended into the hollow, where we at length halted to spend the night. On this ridge several sentries were placed, to give early notice of the approach of the foe. No fires were lighted; and each man, having taken his frugal meal of dates and flour-cakes, lay down among the weary camels ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... of disturbing land speculation, and a too general extravagance of living, we settled down into a frugal folk, of moderate but steady prosperity, which lasted up to the general unsettlement of everything by the gold. The general moderation, and the cheap and plenty time that characterized it, culminated in 1844, when bread was 4 pence ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... morning the old woman woke up early, and lighting fire, made a frugal but amply sufficient breakfast, which, she placed before her uninvited guests. Mrs. Wentworth partook of the meal but slightly, and her little son ate heartily. Ella being still asleep, she was not disturbed. Shortly after the meal was ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams

... have required for the childhood of the man. He was born amid the art he was, not to transform, but to perfect, by a thousand reverential retouchings. In no palace, however, but [40] in a modest abode, still shown, containing the workshop of his father, Giovanni Santi. But here, too, though in frugal form, art, the arts, were present. A store of artistic objects was, or had recently been, made there, and now especially, for fitting patrons, religious pictures in the old Umbrian manner. In quiet nooks of the Apennines Giovanni's works remain; and there is one ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... gown which begins from close to her bosom, And in rich folds descending, her well-turn'd ankles envelops. 'Tis she, beyond all doubt. So come, that we may examine Whether she be both a good and a frugal and virtuous maiden." Then the pastor rejoin'd, the sitting damsel inspecting "That she enchanted the youth, I confess is no matter of wonder, For she stands the test of the gaze of a man of experience. Happy the person to whom Mother ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... of Ch'ing Wen's illness were, it is true, grave; yet fortunately for her she had ever had to strain her physical strength, and not to tax the energies of her mind. Furthermore, she had always been frugal in her diet, so that she had never sustained any harm from under or over-eating. The custom in the Chia mansion was that as soon as any one, irrespective of masters or servants, contracted the slightest ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... very precarious fund in its present situation, and at best could not last us long; considering too that it was very uncertain how long we might be detained upon this island; the stores and provisions we were so fortunate as to retrieve, were not only to be dealt out with the most frugal economy, but a sufficient quantity, if possible, laid by, to fit us out, whenever we could agree upon any method of transporting ourselves from this dreary spot. The difficulties we had to encounter in these visits to the wreck, cannot be easily described; for no part ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... to swallow something for every little discomfort, and taking a pill is also by far the easiest thing to do because a pill requires no life-style changes, nor self-discipline, nor personal responsibility. But vitamins are much more frugal than drugs. Compared to prescriptions, even the most exotic life extension supplements are much less expensive. I am saddened when my clients tell me they can't afford supplements. When their MD prescribes ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... go up to the Gulf of Persia ourselves, where it was probable we might sell them as well as the English merchants of Surat. William was for going ourselves, which, by the way, was from the good, frugal, merchant-like temper of the man, who was for the best of everything; but here I overruled William, which I very seldom took upon me to do; but I told him, that, considering our circumstances, it was much ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... had at times met with reverses, they never lost their grip of the Abbey property. During the course of the first half of the nineteenth century the land increased largely in value, and its acreage was considerably added to by the father of the present owner, a man of frugal mind, but with the family mania for the collection of all sorts of plate strongly developed. But it was Philip's father, "Devil Caresfoot," who had, during his fifty years' tenure of the property, raised the family to its present opulent ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... Pittsburg, aged sixty, had, by tireless industry and the exercise of rigid economy, accumulated a hoard of frugal dollars, the sight and feel whereof were to his soul a pure delight. Imagine his sorrow and the heaviness of his aged heart when he learned that the good wife had bestowed thereof upon her brother bountiful largess exceeding his merit. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... my traveling expenses down I was usually very frugal on the road. I had not yet seen the inside of a dining-car (while stopping at a hotel I would not indulge in a dining-room meal unless I deemed it advisable to do so for business considerations). On this occasion, however, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... West Inch, but it is not a fine estate with a braw house upon it, but only a great hard-bitten, wind-swept sheep run, fringing off into links along the sea-shore, where a frugal man might with hard work just pay his rent and have butter instead of treacle on Sundays. In the centre there is a grey-stoned slate-roofed house with a byre behind it, and "1703" scrawled in stonework over the lintel of the door. There for more than a hundred years our folk ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fathers fought on it, worked on it, thought and studied on it, wrote ballads and preached sermons on it, and created the Scotland, kinship with which we are all so proud to claim, on a diet chiefly composed of oat cakes and oatmeal porridge. On such frugal fare, they subdued a harsh and stubborn soil and made it yield its yearly toll of harvest; they took tribute of wool and mutton from the moorland and the hillside, and of hide and beef from the fallow lea; they levied on loch and sea to support their fisher-folk; and kept ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... of more luxurious fare, but none that he enjoyed more than that frugal repast, in a lonely wagon on a cold and dark winter morning. Thrilled with a strange exhilaration, he jested and found entertainment in everything, and the girl beside him began to share his high ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... mercantile aristocracy, who live like the old Venetian nobility among their flat lagoons, and do commerce chiefly with the Turk in the more torrid and instinctive Indies and South. Amiable, social, afraid of new ideas, frugal of money; if hospitable at the table, with a certain spiritedness that is seldom intellectual, but a beauty that powerfully attracts, till, by the limited sympathies beneath it, the husband from the outer world discerns ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... honour of Great Britain; we are not too hastily to infer a strong principle of internal benevolence, from liberal contributions to the relief of indigence and misery. When these contributions indeed are equally abundant in frugal times, or from individuals personally oeconomical, the source from which they originate becomes less questionable. But a vigorous principle of philanthropy must not be at once conceded, on the ground of liberal benefactions ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... taught in her public schools, and is very generally spoken by the intelligent people. Education is more general, and culture is of a higher grade in Sweden than is common with the people of Southern Europe, while music is nearly as universal an acquirement here as it is in Italy. The population is frugal, honest, self-helping, and in many ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... knew Leigh Hunt well, may be borne to their truthfulness. It is not, that it may be recorded in these pages, as in his son's introductory chapter, that his life was of the most amiable and domestic kind, that his wants were few, that his way of life was frugal, that he was a man of small expenses, no ostentations, a diligent labourer, and a secluded man of letters. It is not, that the inconsiderate and forgetful may be reminded of his wrongs and sufferings ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... to-night, and when I arrive at the ruins of an old mud-built khan, at dusk, I conclude to sup off the memories of my excellent dinner and a piece of bread I have in my pocket, and avail myself of its shelter for the night. While eating my frugal repast, up ride three mule-teers, who, after consulting among themselves some minutes, finally picket their animals and prepare to join my company; whether for all night or only to give their animals a feed of grass, I am unable to say. Anyhow, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... subservient slave of Greed and barter all of time for a handful of yellow dross to cast upon the threshold of eternity? "Poor and content is rich," and rich enough. With a roof to shelter those his heart holds dear, and table furnished forth with frugal fare; with manhood's dauntless courage and woman's deathless love, the peasant in his lowly cot may be richer far than the prince in ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... corrupted state, Wrestling with vice and faction: now thou see'st me Spent, overpower'd, despairing of success. Let me advise thee to retreat betimes To thy paternal seat, the Sabine field; Where the great Censor toil'd with his own hands, And all our frugal ancestors were bless'd In humble virtues, and a rural life; There live retired, pray for the peace of Rome; Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... upon the strand, while the last beams of the sun played upon the wide blue waters of the Mediterranean, Nisida partook of her frugal repast, consisting of the bread supplied by the wreck and a few fruits which she gathered in the valley. The effects of the tempest had totally disappeared in respect to the sea, which now lay stretched in glassy stillness. It seemed as if a holy calm, soft as an infant's sleep, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... first with silver bound, Nor rivalled emulous the trumpet's sound; Few were its notes, its forms were simply plain, Yet not unuseful was its feeble strain, To aid the chorus, and their songs to raise, Filling the little theatre with ease, To which a thin and pious audience came Of frugal ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... that quarter; and to appeal to Major Mabry might arouse his suspicions. I had handled a great deal of money for him, accounting for every cent, but had he known of my inability to take care of my own frugal earnings it might have aroused his distrust. I was sure of a position with him again as trail foreman, and not for the world would I have had him know that I could be such a fool as to squander my ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... of acres cultivated in 1840 were, according to the returns of the local Agricultural Society, 1650 in wheat, and 3296 in every kind of culture. This settlement is, more than others, in want of that article of which England especially needs to be relieved—population; and if a man is frugal, sober, and industrious, if he will bear in mind that "on no part of the face of the globe will the earth yield her increase, but as it is moistened by sweat from man's brow,"[163] Western Australia is, possibly, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... be made aware that poverty was a possible visitation to our own household; and that, in our Cape Ann corner of Massachusetts, we might find it neither comfortable nor picturesque. After my father's death, our way of living, never luxurious, grew more and more frugal. Now and then I heard mysterious allusions to "the wolf at the door": and it was whispered that, to escape him, we might all have to turn our backs upon the home where we were born, and find our safety in the busy world, working among strangers for ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... regards a sturdy spirit, and care that makes one's bed uneasy, and a frugal spirit and hard-living and savory-eating belly, be of good courage and don't trouble yourself; I would offer myself to hammer on, for ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... letter for his deceased cousin. He read it, and received me with unaffected cordiality, making an apology for my frugal entertainment, but assuring me of a hearty welcome. His true kindly hospitality was also shewn in taking care of my servant, an honest Swiss, who loved to eat and ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... affairs went on for six whole years, during which time Madame de Nesmond lavished upon her comely paramour all the wealth amassed by her frugal, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... the people. The statues, by Archias's orders, were to be executed in chryselephantine work, and the gold and ivory which this required might only too easily awaken the vice of cupidity in the honest and frugal Biamites. So nothing could be done about it, not to mention the fact that he was forbidden, on pain of being sold to work in a stone quarry, to open the studio to any one without his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Be diligent in your respective callings, and faithful in all the relations you bear in society, whether as husbands, wives, fathers, children or hired servants. Be just in all your dealings. Be simple in your dress and furniture, and frugal in your family expenses. Thus you will act like Christians as well as freemen, and, by these means, you will provide for the distress and wants of sickness ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... this while; a solid, elegant, yet frugal builder: and now the main body of the Mansion is complete, or nearly so, the wings and adjuncts going steadily forward; Mansion so far ready that the Royal Highnesses can take up their abode in it. Which they do, this Autumn, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... when he drew them, but finally began to reject, them. In a few days he was delirious with hunger and homesick ness. He would sit on the sand for hours imagining that he was at his family table, dispensing his frugal hospitalities to his wife ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... my word, I had nearly forgotten that. But, you see, Holland had very plain ways in the good old time; in fact, we are a very simple, frugal people to this day. The Van Gend establishment is a decided exception, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... not give a better proof of the sociability of Lord Byron's disposition," says Medwin, "than by speaking of the gayety that prevailed at his Wednesday dinner-parties at Pisa. His table, when alone, was more than frugal; but on these occasions, every sort of wine, and all the delicacies of the season, were served up in grand display, worthy of the best houses. I never knew any one who did the honors of his house with greater affability and hospitality than ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... had stuck little staves in our footprints, wherever we had gone during the night, and we learnt from them that they had never once lost sight of our trail. Indeed, they had often seen us, and had watched us when we slept or took our frugal meals. Why they had never seized us, we could not imagine. Perhaps, with their well known cowardice, they feared lest we might defend ourselves, and kill some of them. As often as we passed through a valley, the inhabitants flocked out of their houses to see ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... Rarely are they quoted in the speeches of the time. Hypnotised by their classical memories of Greece and Rome, the new legislators re- read their Plato and their Plutarch. They wished to revive the constitution of Sparta, with its manners, its frugal habits, ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... nor short of stature, and rather stout than slight in build. He had black hair, beautiful features, and eyes dark and merry, and he was very loving, regular in all his actions, and frugal in eating, but fond of dressing and living in honourable fashion. He had disciples in plenty, but the best were Giovanni da Lione, Raffaello dal Colle of Borgo, Benedetto Pagni of Pescia, Figurino da ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... island was disturbed by tribal wars. Sometimes he would go fishing on the reef, and bring home a basket full of coloured fish. Sometimes at night he would go out with a lantern to catch lobster. There were plantains round the hut and Sally would roast them for their frugal meal. She knew how to make delicious messes from coconuts, and the bread-fruit tree by the side of the creek gave them its fruit. On feast-days they killed a little pig and cooked it on hot stones. They bathed together in the creek; and in the evening they went down to the lagoon and paddled ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... shots, but Byron the safest; for, though his hand often shook, he made allowance for the vibration, and never missed his mark. On one occasion he set up a slender cane, and at twenty paces divided it with his bullet. The early part of the evening he gave to a frugal meal and the society of La Guiccioli—now apparently, in defiance of the statute of limitations, established under the same roof—and then sat late over his verses. He was disposed to be more sociable than at Venice or Ravenna, and occasionally ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... craft is shown In innocent wars, on beasts and birds alone. This is the life from all misfortune free, From thee, the great one, tyrant love, from thee; And if a chaste and clean though homely wife, Be added to the blessings of this life, - Such as the ancient sun-burnt Sabines were, Such as Apulia, frugal still, does bear, - Who makes her children and the house her care And joyfully the work of life does share; Nor thinks herself too noble or too fine To pin the sheepfold or to milk the kine; Who waits at door against her husband come From rural duties, late, and wearied home, Where ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... in hand, had projected an attack upon at least a score of dusty casks, and who stood transfixed, or morally gimleted as it were, to his own wall—when he had done all this, and disposed besides of a frugal dinner at the Black Lion in Whitechapel; spurning the Monument and John's advice, he turned his steps towards the locksmith's house, attracted by the eyes of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... for her mind, he was the cause of her appearing there with him a dozen nights in the month. It even happened that, seeing her home at such times, he occasionally went in with her to finish, as he called it, the evening, and, the better to make his point, sat down to the frugal but always careful little supper that awaited his pleasure. His point was made, he thought, by his not eternally insisting with her on himself; made for instance, at such hours, when it befell that, her piano at hand and each of them familiar with it, they went over passages of the opera together. ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James

... little of Norway. The same austere and frugal beauty—the same bare valley floors. But no pines, no peaks, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... frugal repast was over, my company was told off in three details for firing purposes, to be relieved afterward by Seymour's company. As I was the ranking officer, I took the first detachment, and marched them to the casemates, which looked ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... Socinian Genevese Colony in Ireland; but he paused, years ago, prophetic before the Minister's Hotel at Paris; and said, it was borne on his mind that he one day was to be Minister, and laughed. (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 399.) Swiss Pachc, on the other hand, sits sleekheaded, frugal; the wonder of his own alley, and even of neighbouring ones, for humility of mind, and a thought deeper than most men's: sit there, Tartuffe, till wanted! Ye Italian Dufournys, Flemish Prolys, flit hither all ye bipeds of prey! Come whosesoever head is hot; thou of mind ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... third day, Mr. Risque having engaged a frugal bed at a little distance from Wisbaden, enters the grand saloon of the Kursaal, and turning to the right, sees before him a perspective, to which not all the marvels of art or nature afford comparison: a snug little room, with a table of green baize in the centre of the floor, and about the ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... mind of the Son. The gluttonies, the gorgeous feasts, the hollow compliments and lies of the people did not attract him. His mission, he told his Tempter, was not yet to free that people, once just and frugal, now debased by their insatiable ambition. When the time came for him to sit on David's throne, this with all other kingdoms of the earth would be shattered while his ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... a subject, treating none, however, with reserved power and thorough care. His attitude toward his work, it is worth while to notice, was an admirable one. His task was often that of a hack writer; his spirit never. His life was frugal and modest in the extreme; and though writing brought him bread and fame, he seems never, in any recorded instance, to have concerned himself with its commercial value. He wrote from a full mind and with genuine inspiration, and lived and died ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... wrote) that our labourers are for the most part in the position of persons who live habitually within their incomes. They are generally sober and frugal, and accustomed to a low standard of living. Their gardens supply them in great measure with the necessaries of life. The chief part, therefore, of what they receive in money, whether as wages or as the price of the surplus produce ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... their officers then sat down to a table improvised of boards laid across barrels and dined together most amicably, but on very frugal fare. General Burgoyne took occasion to compliment the discipline of the American army. He then proposed a toast to General Washington. General Gates then drank to the health of the king. High above the marquee the Stars and Stripes waved gloriously in triumph of the day of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... As I ate my frugal breakfast, such a vision was passing before me. I contemplated the future with pleasant hopes, but not without feelings of uneasiness. I had not forgotten the abrupt parting—no invitation to renew the acquaintance, no hope, no prospect that I should ever behold that beautiful woman again, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... sweet bread, made with eggs; and kuechli is a kind of pastry, crisp and flimsy, fashioned into various devices of cross, star, and scroll. Grampampuli is simply brandy burnt with sugar, the most unsophisticated punch I ever drank from tumblers. The frugal people of Davos, who live on bread and cheese and dried meat all the year, indulge themselves but once with these ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... Her temper had been framed, as if to make A Being who, by adding love to fear, Might live on earth a life of happiness. Her wedded partner lack'd not on his side The humble worth that satisfied her heart— Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell That he was often seated at his loom In summer, ere the mower was abroad Among the dewy grass—in early spring, Ere ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... climb the many-winding way, And frequent turn to linger as you go, From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of Woe;"[47][2.B.] Where frugal monks their little relics show, And sundry legends to the stranger tell: Here impious men have punished been, and lo! Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, In hope to merit Heaven ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... and happy men, upon their own land; are active, frugal, and, without exception, well off. This they must be, for considerable means are necessary for the purchase of their freedom; and, once free, and in possession of a farm of their own, their energy and industry, manifested even in a state of slavery, are redoubled ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... intent on the welfare of all beings. And that forgiving (monarch) of truthful speech and subdued senses was without issue. And when he got old, he was stricken with grief at this. And with the object of raising offspring, he observed rigid vows and began to live upon frugal fare, having recourse to the Brahmacharya mode of life, and restraining his senses. And that best of kings, (daily) offering ten thousand oblations to the fire, recited Mantras in honour of Savitri[65] and ate temperately at the sixth hour. And he passed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... at Friedrichsfelde near Berlin in 1785, they invited Mendelssohn, whom they were eager to know, to visit them. When dinner was announced, Mendelssohn was not to be found. The companion of the two ladies writes in her journal:[83] "He had quietly slipped away to the inn at which he had ordered a frugal meal. From a motive entirely worthy I am sure, this philosopher never permits himself to be invited to a meal at a Christian's house. Not to be deprived of Mendelssohn's society too long, the duchess rose from the table as soon as possible." Mendelssohn returned, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... of attendant maidens, renounced the vanity of dress—wearing only plain and simple robes; they spent their time in making garments for the poor, and embroidered work for church decorations; and with song and prayer and frugal meals, interspersed with frequent fasts, they kept their vow to "forswear the world and its allurements," in an altogether strict and monotonous manner. Of course this style of living is no more to be recommended to healthy, hearty, fun-loving girls of fifteen than is its extreme of gayety and ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... her, but in awe, as one loves the marbles of Phidias. She knew no restraint, and yet she had passed through her stirless years restrained. She was worldly without being more than normally cynical; she was rich without being either frugal or extravagant. Her independence was inherent and not acquired. She had laid down certain laws for herself to follow; and that these often clashed with the laws of convention, which are fetish to those who divide society into three classes, only mildly amused ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... haply she might serve Him, and also find some one that might teach her how He ought to be served. Marking her youth and great beauty, the worthy man, fearing lest, if he suffered her to remain with him, he should be ensnared by the Devil, commended her good intention, set before her a frugal repast of roots of herbs, crab-apples and dates, with a little water to wash them down, and said to her:—"My daughter, there is a holy man not far from here, who is much better able to teach thee that of which thou art in quest ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... their allegiance, and conferred on him all the several branches of the Imperial power. [13] From the senate Julian was conducted, by the same military procession, to take possession of the palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were the abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment prepared for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the other with contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he amused himself, till a very late hour, with dice, and the performances of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... omit the fact that the father of Benjamin was a good singer and a good player of the violin. After the labors of the day were over, and the frugal supper eaten, and the table cleared, and the room put in order for the evening, he was wont to sing and play for the entertainment of his family. He was sure of a good audience every night, if his performance opened before the younger ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... the servant returned, bringing in the very frugal fare he had ordered—a jar of wine, some olives, and bread of rather brownish hue, with some goats' milk cheese, were ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... will in directions favourable to his interest. None of those who aspired to take his place could follow him on that road, because none were so superbly indifferent to wealth. Cecil Rhodes did not care for riches for the personal enjoyments they can purchase. He was frugal in his tastes, simple in his manners and belongings, and absolutely careless as to the comforts of life. The waste in his household was something fabulous, but it is a question whether he ever participated in luxuries showered upon others. His one ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... his wife being a dairyman's daughter from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket—and kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... Frugal as it was, it was a sumptuous banquet compared with their late fare; and the poor famished creatures devoured it ravenously, feeling, when it was finished, that they could have disposed of thrice as much. Perhaps it was just as well that there was ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... those days was a being sui generis. Shrewd, frugal, industrious, and capable of taking care of himself while in his accustomed environment, he was apt to become as helpless as a child when he reached unfamiliar surroundings. Thus, a successful digger wishing to invest ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... Madonna pictures, equally homely as to environment, are by no means scenes of hilarity, but rather of frugal contentment. Two similar works bear the title of Le Menage du Menuisier—the Carpenter's Home. In both, the scene is the interior of a common room devoted to work and household purposes. Joseph is seen in the rear at his bench, ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... night, after a disordered walk, Archie was admitted into Lord Glenalmond's dining-room, where he sat with a book upon his knee, beside three frugal coals of fire. In his robes upon the bench, Glenalmond had a certain air of burliness: plucked of these, it was a may-pole of a man that rose unsteadily from his chair to give his visitor welcome. Archie had suffered much in the last days, he had suffered again that evening; his face was white ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... collection the place is visited by one of the provincial officials, and the fullest details of the circumstances of each family are ascertained. The limit of the official robbery which follows is the ability to pay, as measured by the patience of the sufferers. The peasantry are peaceful, frugal, and easily governed, but there is a point beyond which they cannot be pressed without risk of making them turn on the oppressor. They have now learnt the strength of the defence they possess in the power of making their grievances known. No doubt the provincial levy ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... the sex described by Mr. Kipling as being the more deadly of the species. During this interim it is a matter of no moment to a boy whether he goes shaggy or cropped, shorn or unshorn. At intervals a frugal parent trims him to see if both his ears are still there, or else a barber does it with more thoroughness, often recovering small articles of household use that have been mysteriously missing for months; but in the main he goes ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... kettle swinging, Merrily trudged away, Stopping at sight of a squirrel, Catching some wild bird's lay, O, I thought, how many a shadow Of life and fate we would miss, If always our frugal dinners Were seasoned ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... surface, but the accumulation of vegetable soil since has been considerable. The Hacienda of Macuilapa manufactures sugar and raises indigo, quantities of the seed of which were being cleaned when I was there. The owner of the place is a man of means, but the meals served were of a mean and frugal kind. Everyone made dire prophecies about the time of possible arrival of my companions, and the period necessary for our further journey to Tuxtla Gutierrez. I had not expected my companions before seven, and after these dismal forebodings, gave up that expectation. ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... that knows no ruth, Ordained thy frugal use in tea and coffee, Some Stoics banned thee—men who in their youth Showed an unnatural dislike of toffee; For sweetness charms the normal human tooth, Sweetness inspires the singer's tenderest strophe, Since old LUCRETIUS musically chid The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various

... Bearing the torch, the dagger and the bomb Red-mouthed run riot in her sacred name Hear mobs of idlers cry—"Equality! Let all men share alike: divide, divide!" Butting their heads against the granite rocks Of Nature and the eternal laws of God. Pull down the toiler, lift the idler up! Despoil the frugal, crown the negligent! Offer rewards to idleness and crime! And pay a premium for improvidence! Fools, can your wolfish cries repeal the laws Of God engraven on the granite hills, Written in every Wrinkle of the earth, On every plain, on every mountain-top,— ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... early plants and sprouting bushes, and woke up the first violets and searched for May flowers, which, of course, she did not find. Squirrels chattered at them, and a blue jay hung about, squalling, evidently hoping for crumbs from their lunch. Only there were no crumbs of Curly's frugal ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... Benjamin Franklin was largely about prize money and the expense of repairing the Alliance, which he undertook to do immediately on his arrival at L'Orient. The frugal doctor attempted to curb, in the matter of expense, the free-handed Jones. The latter had an enormous respect for Franklin, and it is quite likely that he attempted to be economical, but he seems to have been less successful in that direction than in any other. Fanning speaks ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... and a natural regard," the book is not the less a genuine outgrowth of Salem. Perhaps the aspect under which Salem presents itself to me is tinged with fancy, though Hawthorne in the same story has called it "a town noted for its frugal, discreet, well-ordered, and home-loving inhabitants, ... but in which, be it said, there are odder individuals, and now and then stranger occurrences, than one meets with almost anywhere else." But it is certain that poor Hepzibah Pyncheon, and the pathetic Clifford, and quaint Uncle Venner, are ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... one point there should be no dubiety: if a man be not frugal he has no business in the arts. If he be not frugal he steers directly for that last tragic scene of le vieux saltimbanque; if he be not frugal he will find it hard to continue to be honest. Some day when the butcher is knocking at the door he may be tempted, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... us, or perhaps the slaves had made free with our provisions on the way; be that as it may, we found nothing but olives, and scarcely any bread. Horace, in his retreat at Tibur, never boasted of a repast more light and frugal; but olives, which might have afforded a satisfactory meal to a poet, devoted to study, and leading a sedentary life, appeared an aliment by no means sufficiently substantial for travellers climbing mountains. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... cheese, in which their trade has been great, but that of herrings the most considerable; and they had manufactures of various kinds, carrying on a prodigious trade to most parts of the world. They are a plain and frugal people, and very laborious. Their form of government was very peculiar; but their independence having been absorbed in the vortex of the French revolution, it is uncertain what form it may assume in a short ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... fiery eloquence sent the Armies of Christendom to fight for the Holy Sepulchre. They dress in a coarse brown gown and cowl, with a girdle of rope, and are under vows of perpetual silence. They live on frugal meals of vegetables and fruit twice a day, have the head tonsured, and feet bare in sandals. The continued fasts, severe flagellations, labours and meditations of those anchorites make the regulations governing this order exceedingly strict, and recall the times when kings and emperors, ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... A frugal supper, and quiet soon reigned within this circle; around each camp-fire the tired forms of the invaders were soon stretched on beds of evergreens—great dark blotches, with luminous centres, on the crystal snow—a sound sleep ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... space into very irregular compartments by means of slanting, upright or curved partitions, subject to the dictates of space. There is no art, consequently, in the accumulation of little cells; the architect's only task is to use the breadth at her disposal in a frugal manner. The material employed for the partitions is a green, vegetable putty, which the Osmia must obtain by chewing the shredded leaves of a plant whose nature is still uncertain. The same green paste serves for the thick plug that closes the abode. But in this case the insect ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among them. Had he lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been a formidable ally or enemy; for he is, by the testimony of all in his neighbourhood, frugal, bold, popular, and insinuating. At present, with less power than an English nobleman, he holds his head high, and appears contented; and the print of Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... be a frugal repast," he has an air of saying, "but it is at least refined, and no man would dare insult me by asking me whether or not I ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... in this thankless world, the givers Are envied even by the receivers. 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion, Rather to hide than pay an obligation. Nay, 'tis much worse than so; It now an artifice doth grow, Wrongs and outrages they do, Lest men should think ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... commons. He was for rougher methods. He continued many years dissembling his religion, and seemed zealous for the church of England, but it was chiefly on design to hinder all propositions, that tended to unite us among ourselves. He was a frugal prince, and brought his court into method and magnificence, for he had L100,000. a-year allowed him. He was made high admiral, and he came to understand all the concerns ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... afforded him a refuge; then China, where he lived as a teacher; and at last he found himself on board a steamer bound for Marseilles. He had little money; but he did not ask himself how he was going to live in Europe. Young, tall, athletic, frugal and inured to hardship, he felt sure of himself; and he had letters to men abroad who ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... ills in dark oblivion lie, And joys, by fancy form'd, their place supply; Night's laughing hours unheeded slip away, Nor one dull thought foretells approach of day. Thus have we lived, and whilst the Fates afford Plain plenty to supply the frugal board; Whilst Mirth with Decency, his lovely bride, And wine's gay god, with Temperance by his side, 290 Their welcome visit pay; whilst Health attends The narrow circle of our chosen friends; Whilst frank Good-humour consecrates the treat, And woman ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... proving, in his capacity as agent, that Eustace had nothing like the amount this year which could enable him to spend two or three months even as a single man in London society. The requisite amount, which he had ascertained, was startling, even had Eustace been likely to be frugal; nor could this year's income justify it, in spite of Boola Boola. The expense of coming into the estate, together with all the repairs and improvements, had been such that the Australian property had been needed to supplement the new. Eustace was very angry and disappointed, and grumbled vehemently. ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fireside circle, on the uses of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Nature benignly gives to all enough, Denies to all a superfluity, What tho' the garb of infamy I wear, Tho' day by day along the echoing beach I cull the wave-worn shells, yet day by day I earn in honesty my frugal food, And lay me down at night to calm repose. No more condemn'd the mercenary tool Of brutal lust, while heaves the indignant heart With Virtue's stiffled sigh, to fold my arms Round the rank felon, and for daily bread To hug contagion to my poison'd ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... remains of the fortifications, like small hills and valleys covered with bright grass. I saw a quantity of fine mushrooms growing in them, and the tall yellow flowers known as Samson's rod. The reason of the fortification is this. The Hollanders were an industrious, frugal people, who made a fruitful country out of swamps and sand. Nymegen is in the border. It is the gate, as it were, to Holland, and the fortifications kept the gate shut ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... it was a poor attempt, and he felt that it was so. Suddenly a sort of weak, faint feeling came over him—he had walked over to the Park in the full heat of the day, and the meals that were eaten over the grocer's shop were very frugal!—he had not been prepared for the news that had met him. "Could I—might I have a glass of water, Master Basil?" he said, drawing to him a ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... their zeal inspires me In my struggle with darkness and pain. These embossed books, unobliterated by the tears and laughter of Time, Are signed with the vital hands of undaunted men. I love these monoliths, so crudely imprinted With their stalwart, cleanly, frugal lives. ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller

... truly said of Germans that they are the most frugal and economical of all people. In the past the usual method has been to exert this frugality with what is already on hand in the larder left-overs, so to speak. One point of the modern instruction of these wandering domestic science teachers, as they go from home to home, is ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... effect Schiller, during his abode in Bauerbach, did once or twice receive little subventions of money from his Father, although never without earnest and not superfluous admonition to become more frugal, and take better heed in laying-out his money. For economics were, by Schiller's own confession, "not at all his talent; it cost him less," he says, "to execute a whole conspiracy and tragedy-plot than to adjust his scheme of housekeeping."—At this time it was never the Father ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... The real wealth of the country was in the flocks and herds that browsed in the valleys and plains. Game of all kinds was abundant, so that the people were unusually fond of the pleasures of the chase; and as they were temperate, inured to exposure, frugal, and adventurous, they made excellent soldiers. Nor did they ever as a nation lose their warlike qualities,—it being only the rich and powerful among them who learned the vices of the nations they subdued, and became addicted to luxury, indolence, and self-indulgence. Before the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord



Words linked to "Frugal" :   colloquialism, thrifty



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