a. [ad. L. frūgālis, f. frūgī used as indecl. adj. = ‘frugal, economical, useful,’ originally the dat. of frux profit, utility, fruit (chiefly in pl. frūgēs fruits): see -AL. Cf. F. frugal.]
1. Careful or sparing in the use of food, goods, etc.; economical. Const. of (? obs.).
1598. Shaks., Merry W., II. i. 28. I was then Frugall of my mirth.
1656. Cowley, Pindar. Odes, 2nd Olymp. Ode, xi. ’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion, Rather to Hide than Pay the Obligation.
1740. J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg., 54. The preceding observation had taught me to be frugal of the Teguments.
1761. Hume, Hist. Eng., II. xxvii. 120. Few had borne a greater part in the frugal politics of the late king.
1782. Cowper, Gilpin, viii.
| John Gilpin kiss’d his loving wife, | |
| O’erjoy’d was he to find, | |
| That though on pleasure she was bent, | |
| She had a frugal mind. |
1841. M. Elphinstone, The History of India, II. 457. The mere husbandmen are sober, frugal, and industrious; and, though they have a dash of the national cunning, are neither turbulent nor insincere.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 685, Critias, Introduction. In the island of Atlantis, Plato is describing a sort of Babylonian or Egyptian city, to which he opposes the frugal life of the true Hellenic citizen.
b. Of things, esp. food: Sparingly supplied or used; of small cost; opposed to luxurious.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 616. Captaine Timotheus, (having upon a time beene at a sober and frugall scholars supper, in the academie with Plato) said: That they who supped with Plato were merry and well appaied the next day after.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 194. Pot-herbs … bruis’d with Vervain, were his frugal Fare.
1762. Goldsm., Cit. W., xlvi. (1837), 267. A frugal meal, which consisted of roots and tea.
1783. Crabbe, Village, I. 324. The glad parish pays the frugal fee.
1868. Browning, Ring & Bk., II. Half-Rome, 460. A frugal board, bare sustenance, no more.
1894. Mrs. H. Ward, Marcella, I. 9. The uncovered boards with their frugal strips of carpet stretching away on either hand.
2. Comb., as frugal-feeding adj.
1814. Edin. Rev., XXIII. 51. The frugal-feeding goat supplied a competency of milk.
Hence Frugally adv., in a frugal manner; Frugalness.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxxix. § 1. For worldly goods it sufficeth frugally and honestly to vse them to our owne benefit.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, iii. 37. Plato seemed too frugally politick, who allowed no larger monument then would contain four Heroick verses, and designed the most barren ground for sepulture.
1721. Berkeley, Prev. Ruin Gt. Brit., Wks. III. 198. That sum … frugally and prudently laid out in workhouses.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Frugalness.
1779–81. Johnson, L. P., Wks. 1816, IX. 338. He seldom lives frugally who lives by chance.
1871. Carlyle, in Mrs. Carlyle’s Lett., I. 373. His frugally elegant small house and table, please me much, as did the man himself, a fine elastic-spirited young fellow with superior natural talent, whom I grieved to see rushing on destruction, palpable by ‘attack of windmills,’ but on whom all my dissuasions were thrown away.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, II. ix. 328. These graceful and gay Andalusians, who played guitars, danced boleros, and fought bulls, should virtually get no good of their own beautiful country but the bunch of grapes or stalk of garlic they frugally dined on.
