Safire’s Vote for Word of the Year

FRUGALISTA!

Defined as “a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc,” it is certainly a word for the times.

Safire notes that the “adjective frugal is rooted in the Latin for ‘fruits,’ which in the 16th century some found relatively cheap. The word was at first applied to the careful apportionment of food, but Shakespeare in his 1598 ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ used it as a metaphor to mean ‘sparingly supplied; thrifty’ of anything, as, ‘I was then Frugall of my mirth.’

Fashionistas are so yesterday, but frugalistas can show us how to thrive even during a recession.