a. That keeps the hand tightly shut; usually in the fig. sense of: Loath to give, stingy, niggardly, miserly, penurious. The opposite of open-handed.
1608. Machin, Dumb Knt., V. i. in Hazl., Dodsley, X. 198. There is Some too close-fisted hardness in your hearts.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Vertue of a Tayle, Wks. II. 131/2. Close-fisted Niggardize.
1640. Bp. Hall, Episc., I. 28. If any man will be so stiffe, and close-fisted, as to stick at any of them [Postulata], they shall be easily wrung out of his fingers by the force of Reason.
1750. Berkeley, Patriotism, § 22. A carking, griping, closefisted fellow.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 61. The close-fisted in no country must hope to receive much gratuitous Service.
b. quasi-adv. Grudgingly.
1575. Fenton, Gold. Epist. (1577), 72. All those … that giue any thing, giue it close fisted (as the saying is).
Hence Closefistedness.
1631. Mabbe, Celestina, II. 30. Close-fistednes, and vncommunicated treasure, doth eclypse and darken, whereas magnificence and liberality doth gaine, and highly extoll it.
a. 1639. W. Whately, Prototypes, I. xi. (1640), 113. Nothing lesse beseemeth a wealthy man then close-fistednesse.
