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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 83. The word origin today is

  • Cheapskate. Okay. Let's take a look at the note. If we say someone is a cheapskate,

  • he is thought to be a stingy person that does not like to spend money. Okay. Good.

  • Let's continue. The origin of cheapskate does not have anything to do with ice

  • skates or rollerskates or any type of skates and has nothing to do with them

  • being on sale or being cheap or anything like that. The skate part of cheapskate

  • refers to an old meaning of skate that is no longer in use. Skate used to mean

  • an unkind, mean or contemptible person . It seems unclear why skate used to have

  • this meaning, but the best guess is it seems that it may have been a variant of

  • the Scottish word skite or skeet which did refer to a

  • person that was considered to be contemptible or disliked. You know , just

  • not a nice person or a mean person. So maybe it came from that. Okay, Anyway we

  • just give two examples here. Example number one. Somebody might say my God ! He

  • is such a cheapskate. The only reason he shaves the hair on his head is he

  • doesn't want to pay for haircuts. You know something like that. That would be

  • typical or number two here. We could say Bob is a real cheapskate.

  • Anytime we buy rounds of beer, Bob always disappears when it is his turn.So he

  • doesn't want to do what you know, you should do. Obviously,

  • if everybody's buying a round, it's your turn, you should you should do it too. But

  • you know, maybe he doesn't want to do it. So maybe he doesn't care what people

  • think of him. He's a cheapskate. He doesn't want to spend that money. Okay.

  • Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 83. The word origin today is

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