thrift

/θrɪft/

/θrɪft/

Other forms: thrifts

Thrift means being very careful about how much money you spend. Reusing the same tea bag ten times so as not to waste money is a kind of thrift.

The word thrift originally referred to fortune and has come to mean the act of being economical; a thrifty person, or someone who practices thrift, is likely to be fortunate in the sense that he has savings. At a thrift store, you will find inexpensive clothing. You probably don’t want to exercise thrift when deciding on something important, like which brain surgeon to use. You may also find thrift on sunlit mountaintops, in the form of a slender-leaved plant with pink flowers.

Definitions of thrift

1. noun

   extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily
   synonyms: parsimoniousness, parsimony, penny-pinching

   type of:

   frugality, frugalness

   prudence in avoiding waste
2. noun

   any of numerous sun-loving low-growing evergreens of the genus Armeria having round heads of pink or white flowers
   types:

   Armeria maritima, cliff rose, sea pink

   tufted thrift of seacoasts and mountains of north temperate zone; occasionally grown as a ground cover

   type of:

   subshrub, suffrutex

   low-growing woody shrub or perennial with woody base
3. verb

   shop at or buy in a secondhand store