Skinflint, meaning stingy or tight-fisted, comes from the idea that someone’s so frugal they would try to skin a piece of the extremely hard rock called flint. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Skinflint”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Jan. I’m calling from Indiana.
Well, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
I am wondering where the term skin flint came from. I know what it means to me and my family. I remember my parents talking about someone being a skin flint. And in our understanding, it was someone stingy or tight-fisted. And I just hadn’t even thought about it until recently I was listening to A Way with Words. And something happened. I started to say something about someone, and that term came to mind. And I thought, there’s a good one for A Way with Words. I know what a flint is, but I don’t know how in the world that evolved.
Absolutely. It’s a great one. Yeah, yeah, it’s really good, and it’s pretty straightforward. You said you know what a flint is. I mean, it’s a very, very hard stone. And so somebody who’s really, really, really stingy would actually skin a flint, somehow manage with great effort to skin a flint, which would be really hard to do.
Right.
Because it’s so hard. And they would skin it the way you might skin an animal and to sell the pelt, right?
Yeah.
Well, interesting that you mentioned that because the expression to skin a flint, which means to go to extreme lengths to do something, goes all the way back to the 17th century. And there’s also another expression from that time that goes to skin a flea for its hide and tallow, which is really, really… That’s incredibly parsimonious. So if you’re skinning a flint, you think there’s some value in taking the skin off of a stone and trying to sell it for money because you’re so stingy. You’ll get every nickel out of everything you possibly can.
Exactly.
Wow. So it began as a term for taking one more layer off the stone.
Yes. It’s a great way to put it. Just getting the tiniest little bit. I’m thinking of a word in ancient Greek for the same thing, which translates as cumin splitter. You know how cumin, the spice, is really, really tiny. And if you split it, then you’re similarly parsimonious.
What language is that?
Ancient Greek.
Ancient Greek, nice. I’m not splitting any cumin. It’s really hard. I’ve tried. So I love this. So embedded in this history is this old idea of stinginess, but we don’t think about skinning anything much anymore.
Yeah, we think about pinching pennies or that kind of thing.
Right. So there you go. Thanks for calling, Jan. I appreciate your help.
Sure, take care now.
Okay, take care.
Okay, thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
