[f. CHEESE sb.1 + PARING vbl. sb. and ppl. a.]
A. sb. A paring of the rind of cheese; an object of no value save in the eyes of a miserly economist.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., III. ii. 332. I doe remember him at Clements Inne, like a man made after Supper, of a Cheese-paring.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 28 April. I won’t loose a cheese-paring.
1821. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1867), I. 331. That their candle-ends and cheese-parings are no longer safe.
b. fig.
1813. Sir R. Wilson, Priv. Diary, II. 475. I am told the king of Saxony is to be re-established if he consents to give some cheese-parings to his neighbours.
1831. J. Wilson, Noctes Ambr., lvii. in Blackwood’s Mag., Aug., 413. Such a tallow-faced cheeseparing of a beardless, bucktoothed ninny.
B. vbl. sb. The paring of cheese. fig. Niggardly economizing, parsimonious saving.
1871. Q. Rev., Jan., 40 (Hoppe). To supply the deficiencies which the wretched cheeseparings of the two previous years had made in our means [of defence].
1873. Spectator, 2 Aug., 1005/2. The discontent with the Government, much of it caused by cheeseparing.
C. ppl. a. Niggardly, miserly, parsimonious.
1867. Cape Natal News, 1 Jan. The more rigid and cheeseparing school of economists.
