[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The state or quality of being thrifty.
† 1. Thriving condition, prosperity. Obs. rare–1.
c. 1530. Proper Dyaloge, in Rede me, etc. (Arb.), 137. They haue brought the lande to beggery And all thryftynes clene awaye swepte.
2. The quality of being frugal or saving; economy, good husbandry: cf. THRIFT sb.1 3.
1552. Elyot, Dict., Frugalitas … thriftines.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 225. A minde … contented with perseuerance, with frugalitie or thriftinesse.
1645. Ussher, Body Div. (1647), 304. Parsimony or thriftiness; whereby we honestly keep and preserve our goods.
1782. Knox, Ess., lxxxvii. II. 22. The qualities distinguished by the homely titles of thriftiness and good housewifery.
1826. F. Reynolds, in Life & Times, II. 83. [He was] a compound of liberality and thriftiness.
1884. Brit. Almanac & Comp. 65. The actual increase of national thriftiness.
