Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chinzy) second-rate, inferior, cheap-looking.

1851		‘George Eliot’ letter 18 Sept. n.p.: The effect is chintzy and would be unbecoming [R].
1951		Guy Who Came Back [film script] How chintzy can you get? [W&F].
1959		J. Blake letter 6 Aug. in Joint (1972) 142: Now I can go away and leave our little chintzy cubicle with an easier mind.
1962		R. Serling ‘The Whole Truth’ in New Stories from the Twilight Zone 4: You don’t want one of these rinky-dinks slapped together on an assembly line covered with chintzy chrome.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 91: A cop. A chinzy low-pay fly-cop.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 81: It was no chintzy whore’s cold kiss.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 67: You have to like horror movies, and black humor, and chintzy production values, to appreciate why Basket Case is so bad.
1991		N. George ‘Michael Bivins’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 61: New Edition first played New York dressed in chintzy stage clothes.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 85: He couldn’t get admitted to even the chintziest law schools.

2. stingy, mean.

1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 41: We used Shirley’s Chevy and gas. That’s why Shirley’s so chintzy.
1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 57: Are you all tight, chintzy, jive, gamblers.
1985		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 3: chintzy – cheap, stingy: The ARA Service is becoming real chintzy with the food servings.
2007		N. McCall Them (2008) 34: Rather than wait on his chintzy landlord, Barlowe used his own funds.