FRUGAL is a relatively common word. It is typically used to describe someone who is careful with money, food, or resources. A FRUGAL person is thrifty and avoids waste.
FRUGAL should not generate a disputed SAT vocabulary in context question. But wait, not so fast! As everyone knows, SAT test writers are skilled at placing common words in an unexpected context. On the SAT, context is everything.
Let’s take a close look at how FRUGAL generated a challenging question. The text presented November 7, 2026 test takers with the following 1873 poem by Emily Dickinson:
“There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page of prancing Poetry-
This Traverse may the poorest take without oppress of Toll –
How FRUGAL is the Chariot that bears the Human Soul.”
The question asked students to determine if FRUGAL most nearly means STINGY, INEXPENSIVE, NORMAL, or THOUGHTFUL.
Students easily eliminated NORMAL or THOUGHTFUL. Knowing that FRUGAL means to be thrifty, many students selected STINGY as the most logical answer. Because STINGY describes someone who is very careful with money, it could most nearly mean FRUGAL.
A close look at the meaning of Dickinson’s poem supports INEXPENSIVE and not STINGY as the best answer. The poem celebrates the power of reading and the human imagination. It compares a book to a frigate (a fast warship), a page of poetry to energetic coursers (racing horses), and the transport of the mind to a chariot. Dickinson’s core message is that literature allows even the poorest person to travel FRUGALLY or INEXPENSIVELY across the world without expensive tolls.
FRUGAL – being thrifty with money, food, or resources
APUSH Bonus Example
President Thomas Jefferson famously embodied the word FRUGAL in both his personal conduct as president and in his approach to government spending. For example, he reduced expensive aristocratic formal receptions with informal dinners where guests sat at a round table without any hierarchy of rank. Jefferson applied the same FRUGALITY to the national budget by shrinking the size of the military and reducing the national debt by nearly a third. Interestingly, while Jefferson was rigorously FRUGAL with presidential ceremony and public funds, he was notoriously extravagant in his private life at Monticello, accumulating massive personal debt over fine wines, books, and architectural renovations.