Green’s Dictionary of Slang

clutch-fisted adj.

mean, miserly .

c.1635		W. Cartwright Ordinary II i: There is / An old rich clutch-fist knight, Sir Thomas Bitefig, / Invite him too.
1663		J. Wilson Cheats I i: A pox take these citizens, and then a man might get some money by ’um. They are so hidebound, there’s no living by ’um; so clunch-fisted.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Clunch-fisted [sic]; covetous, stingy.
1861		Belfast News Ltr 28 Nov. 4/2: Dr Trench delivered and intersting and amusing lecture on [...] ‘The English Language, as it would have been but for the Battle of hastings,’ [...] the old language such as [...] ‘clutch-fist’ now supplanted by miser.
1926		Gloucester Citizen 16 July 10/3: We have lost some strikingly expressive terms such as clutch-fist.