?a1475 (?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl.) (1871) III. 35 Ligurgus afe lawes..movenge that parcimony [L. parsimoniam] scholde be hade of alle men, leste the labore of cheuallry scholde faile thro plente. 1534 R. WHITTINTON tr. 3 Bks. Tullyes Offyces sig. P2, Suche thynges..kept or saued by dyligence and honest sauynge called parsymonye. ?c1550 tr. P. Vergil Eng. Hist. (1846) I. II. 90 A prince of great parsimonie, and in noe respecte ambitious. 1593 A. MUNDY tr. Def. Contraries 83 The holie life of sobrietie and parsimonie. 1604 R. CAWDREY Table Alphabet., Parsimonie, thriftines, sparing. 1631 T. POWELL Tom of All Trades (1876) 170 Without profusenesse, or too much percemonie. 1642 tr. W. Ames Marrow Sacred Divinity 378 Parsimony is a vertue whereby we make only honest and necessary expences. 1706 R. ESTCOURT Fair Example II. i, The World grows extravagant and derogates..from the Parsimony of our Ancestors. 1776 A. SMITH Inq. Wealth of Nations II. V. iii. 536 The want of parsimony in time of peace, imposes the necessity of contracting debt in time of war. 1865 E. B. TYLOR Res. Early Hist. Mankind ix. 268 In..all domestic matters, they use the ancient parsimony. 1898 Dict. National Biogr. LV. 221/2 Swift's parsimony enabled him to be charitable. 1945 N. MITFORD Pursuit of Love 168 Measuring out the soap-flakes with wartime parsimony. 2000 Austral. Financial Rev. (Sydney) (Nexis) 20 Dec. 11/2 (heading) Exports and parsimony could halve NZ's current account deficit.

1561 R. EDEN tr. M. Cortes Arte Nauigation Pref., By miserable couetousnes and parcimonie. 1592 T. NASHE Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. Copy) sig. F2^v, His beggerly parsimony and ignoble illiberaltie. c1616 R. CORBETT Times' Whistle (1871) 30 Base avarice & sordid parsimony Is thrift accounted. 1673 R. ALLESTREE Ladies Calling II. iii. §5 This is one of the most pernicious parsimonies imaginable. 1697 DRYDEN tr. Virgil Georgics III, in tr. Virgil Wks. 104 Nor be with harmful parsimony won. 1712 J. ARBUTHNOT John Bull III. vii. 31 It is impossible to march up close to the Frontiers of Frugality, without entering the Territories of Parsimony. 1762 S. SCOTT Descr. Millenium Hall 105 In time the parcimony of her old aunt became generally kinown, and the young lady then was left free from the tender importunity of lovers. 1834 Pearl & Lit. Gaz. 19 July 202/2 There is no class of people more annoying in a community than those..who through extreme parsimony neglect to provide themselves with the various articles, which are considered indispensable in a well regulated family. 1896 Times 1 Sept. 7/4 Due to ill-judged Parliamentary interference and to the misplaced parcimony of the Treasury. 1931 V. SACKVILLE-WEST All Passion Spent III. 200 They couldn't help being stingy, since parsimony ran in their blood. 1994 Guardian 20 Sept. (Educ. section) 9/1 Even Stafford Cripps would have drawn the line at rationing light in the latrines. Such muckworming parsimony is part of Exeter University's efficiency drive.

1650 W. DAVENANT Gonibert Pref. 35 That usual parsimony in owners of Wit, towards such as would make use of their plenty. 1667 R. SOUTH Serm. I. 286 That Parsimony in God's Worship were the worst Husbandry in the World. 1727 L. WELSTED Dissembled Wanton IV. i. 49 Be not too profuse even of Words; Parsimony is a Virtue in all things. 1788 W. HAYLEY Poems & Plays III. iv. 78 The supposed Parsimony of Nature in bestowing Poetic Genius. 1850 R. W. EMERSON Representative Men iv. 182 They accuse the divine providence of a certain parsimony. 1876 J. R. LOWELL Among my Bks. 2nd Ser. 40 Dante's parsimony of epithet. 1905 J. LONDON White Fang IV. ii. 204 His head..slanted uncompromisingly to meet a low and remarkably wide forehead. Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread his features with a lavish hand. 2003 Regulation (Nexis) 25 65 Because they justify the use of coercion, rights themselves are a necessary evil and that argues for a parsimony of rights.

a1856 W. HAMILTON Lect. Metaphysics (1859) II. xxxiv. 395 The law of Parcimony, which forbids, without necessity, the multiplication of entities, powers, principles, or causes; above all, the postulation of an unknown force, where a known impotence can account for the effect. 1875 W. JAMES Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 24 One may deem that the lack of emotional bias which left him contented with the mere principle of parsimony as a criterion of universal truth was really due to a defect in the active or impulsive part of his mental nature. 1933 J. C. FLÜGEL Hundred Years Psychol. ii. 124 The ‘law of parsimony’, according to which we must always explain animal behaviour in terms of the simplest mental processes that will account for the facts. 1957 R. K. MERTON Social Theory (rev. ed.) II. viii. 259 The theoretical objective of parsimony, found whenever several empirical generalizations are derived from a more general formulation. 1992 Cambr. Encycl. Human Evol. (1994) I. ii. 23/2 Many biologists claim that the principle of parsimony is the most reliable criterion for doing this, the optimal tree being that requiring the least evolutionary change. 2002 Systematic Entomol. 27 409 Neighbour joining, parsimony and maximum likelihood inference methods were employed to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships in separate analyses of each gene, and parsimony was used to analyse the combined dataset.

[1917 Sci. Monthly Jan. 24 It is a general law, the law of parsimony, that a species does not expend energies unnecessary in its mode of life.] 1931 D. K. ADAMS in Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. 22 153 This economy upon repetition or, better, the property (we shall call it parsimony) of which it is simply one manifestation, is a fundamental property of a certain class of bodies. 1948 E. R. HILGARD Theories of Learning xi. 295 The process of need satiation is regulated by a principle called ‘parsimony’. That is a preference for short-cuts, described by others as the principle of least action. 1955 Sci. Amer. June 68/1 This is the grand overriding law of the parsimony of nature: every action within a system is executed with the least possible expenditure of energy.