penny-wise

1. 1.

   thrifty in small matters only

   Similarthrifty

Questions about penny-wise

What does penny-wise mean?

penny-wise means "thrifty in small matters only".

How many syllables are in penny-wise?

penny-wise has 3 syllables: pen-ny--wise. The stress falls on "pen".

Is penny-wise a common word?

penny-wise is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.