Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an ungenerous, mean person.

1896		H. Blossom Checkers 48: You take a paralyzed oath [...] that if you ever get right again you’ll ‘salt your stuff’ and be a ‘tight-wad.’.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 78: Maggie’s a tightwad and allus was.
1917		E. Pound letter May in Paige (1971) 111: Quinn made me mad the first time I saw him (1910). I came back on him four years later, and since then I have spent a good deal of his money. His name does not spell Tightwad.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 157: Emily’d have given it to me if it hadn’t been for that damned old tightwad.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 32: It would have been fatal to earn the reputation of being a ‘spoil-sport,’ ‘wet blanket’ or ‘tight wad.’.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 280: You scratch an Eisenherz and you find a tightwad, no matter how many French paintings he buys.
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] ‘We’ll raid that greaseball tomorrer!’ [...] teach him a lesson for being such a tightwad! The Greeky frankfurter man! The stingy greaseball!
1956		I. Fleming Diamonds Are Forever (1958) 169: You’re not naturally a tightwad.
1962		C. Clausen I Love You Honey, But the Season’s Over 173: We ribbed him all the time about being a tightwad.
1974		J. Lahr Hot to Trot 23: She’s a tightwad.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘A Slow Bus to Chingford’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You would wouldn’t you, you tight wad.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 193: [H]e was so mean with a quid he’d have made a more than reasonable contender for the champion tightwad crown .
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 189: Even the rich are tightwads today.
2000		M. Amis Experience 153: A laconic, unsmiling, dumpty-shaped tightwad.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] I’d become the world’s biggest tightwad.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 103: He’s a bit of a tightwad. Honest but close with a buck.