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 and divides as pen-ny--wise under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

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.