Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Careful in dealing with small sums of money or small matters.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Saving small sums at the hazard of larger; niggardly in unimportant affairs: generally used in the phrase penny-wise and pound-foolish, careful in small economies and wasteful in large affairs.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Thrifty in small matters only. Used mostly in the phrase
penny-wise and pound foolish.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Thrifty in regards to small amounts of money.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective thrifty in small matters only
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The term penny-wise is hyphenated because it is a compound modifier in which wise means smart, rather than a use of the suffix -wise.
Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage PAUL R. MARTIN 2002
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The term penny-wise is hyphenated because it is a compound modifier in which wise means smart, rather than a use of the suffix -wise.
Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage PAUL R. MARTIN 2002
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This really is the epitome of penny-wise and pound-foolish, but I knew it was coming.
Street parking in downtown Portland hits $1.60 an hour (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009
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Their complaint that we cannot afford to spend an additional $7 billion over five years to upgrade school lunch menus by requiring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy is a classic case of "penny-wise, pound-foolish."
Edward Flattau: Food Foolery Edward Flattau 2011
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Of course leaving the status quo in place instead would again be penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Matthew Yglesias » Fiscal Crunches Are Resolved When There’s No Alternative 2010
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Their complaint that we cannot afford to spend an additional $7 billion over five years to upgrade school lunch menus by requiring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy is a classic case of "penny-wise, pound-foolish."
Edward Flattau: Food Foolery Edward Flattau 2011
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Sacrificing the health and achievement of the next generation is penny-wise and pound foolish when other nations are pulling ahead and leaving our children behind.
Marian Wright Edelman: Celebrating and Protecting Health Reform for Children Marian Wright Edelman 2011
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I'd say the mess that NASA is in schedule-wise concerning the Shuttle program and bringing the Constellation system online is mostly due to the penny-wise pound-foolish politicians in Congress forcing NASA into an endles series of less than optimal decisions based on availability of not enough money.
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Sacrificing the health and achievement of the next generation is penny-wise and pound foolish when other nations are pulling ahead and leaving our children behind.
Marian Wright Edelman: Celebrating and Protecting Health Reform for Children Marian Wright Edelman 2011
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Two examples of penny-wise but pound-foolish decisions: A city decides to reduce its number of public safety officers only to experience an increase in crime that drives away tax-paying businesses; or it decides to increase school class sizes only to produce lower graduation rates.
How To Save America's Cities With Data Analytics Stanley S. Litow 2011
arby commented on the word penny-wise
VARIANT FORMS: or pennywise
ADJECTIVE: Careful in dealing with small sums of money or small matters.
October 10, 2007