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UNGENEROUS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unwilling to spend (money, time, resources, etc.)
Example:
an ungenerous response to the appeal for funds
Synonyms:
stingy; ungenerous
Classified under:
Similar:
beggarly; mean ((used of sums of money) so small in amount as to deserve contempt)
cheap; chinchy; chintzy (embarrassingly stingy)
cheeseparing; close; near; penny-pinching; skinny (giving or spending with reluctance)
closefisted; hardfisted; tightfisted (unwilling to part with money)
grudging; niggardly; scrimy (petty or reluctant in giving or spending)
mean; mingy; miserly; tight ((used of persons or behavior) characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity)
parsimonious; penurious (excessively unwilling to spend)
Also:
uncharitable (lacking love and generosity)
meanspirited; ungenerous (lacking in magnanimity)
selfish (concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others)
Attribute:
generosity; generousness (the trait of being willing to give your money or time)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Lacking in magnanimity
Example:
a meanspirited man unwilling to forgive
Synonyms:
meanspirited; ungenerous
Classified under:
Also:
stingy; ungenerous (unwilling to spend (money, time, resources, etc.))
Antonym:
generous (not petty in character and mind)
Context examples:
Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I heard enough of what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to be acting with a stranger; and as she probably engaged in the part with different expectations—perhaps without considering the subject enough to know what was likely to be—it would be ungenerous, it would be really wrong to expose her to it.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
