thrifty

adj

1. Showing thrift; economical; frugal.

   “That was a certain trade, while th' age was thrifty, / And men good husbands, look'd into their stocks, / Had their minds bounded; now the public riot / Prostitutes all, scatters away in coaches, / In footmens coats, and waiting womens gowns”

   “Nor less disastrous, should his thrifty urn / Neglected leave the once well-water'd land, / To dreary wastes yon paradise would turn, / Polluted ooze, or heaps of barren sand.”

   “Both were thrifty and hardworking. From the beginning of their marriage both worked steadily and saved every penny above their basic living expenses. By their first anniversary they were saving almost all of Richard's earnings as a union carpenter—eighty to ninety dollars a week.”

2. (dated)Thriving, prosperous, successful; (of an animal or plant) growing rapidly or vigorously.

   “The life of religion is this water of life; where that runs, where that is received, and where things are done in this spirit, there all things are well: The church thrifty, the soul thrifty, graces thrifty, and all is well.”

   “the lands on this road are of an excellent quality, and in many places light timbered, in others covered with thrifty oak, black walnut, sugar maple, beach and linden.”

   “But, Gentlemen, the gallant Admiral has told you he has two loves; and he seems to have made a prudent choice, and been a very thrifty wooer.”

   “A thrifty tree of twelve or eighteen inches diameter will increase in its quantity or weight by one year's growth, beyond that of a small sprout or tree in a ratio of more than five to one.”

   “Cut a small branch of oleander from a thrifty plant, place it in a vial partly filled with rain water,...”

3. (obsolete)Preserved by thrift; carefully managed.

   “They han great stores, and thriftye flockes, / great freendes and feeble foes”

   “But do not ſo: I haue fiue hundred Crownes, The thriftie hire I ſaued vnder your Father, Which I did ſtore to be my foſter Nurſe”

   “No more the shadows of the plane-tree and the beech allay the intensity of the solstitial heat; no more the feathered tribes are heard to chirrup amidst the sprays, or the active squirrel seen to disport among the boughs, or collect his thrifty store of acrons ^([sic]) and of nuts, under the cool and impenetrable recesses of the glade.”

   “The amount of patient toil, with its thrifty rewards; of domestic happiness, with its radiant comforts; the amount of intelligent culture, of high-aimed virtue, and of kindly charity, — that have been realized here, if not matter of our boasting, is the glory of our inheritance.”