mesquinadj.

Etymology: < French mesquin (1604), either < Spanish mezquino (1526; a950 in sense ‘poor, wretched, indigent’) or (although attested slightly earlier in this sense) Italian meschino (a1612; 14th cent. in sense ‘poor, wretched, indigent’), both ultimately < Arabic miskīn poor, wretched, miserable.French mesquin represents a reborrowing of a word earlier represented in Gallo-Romance by Old French, Middle French meschin (noun) young man, servant (11th cent.; compare meschyne n.), (adjective) young (12th cent.), Old Occitan mesquin poor, puny, valueless, young (11th cent.) < (perhaps via Spanish, on account of its early date) Arabic miskīn . In French the adjective and noun had died out by the end of the 15th cent. (except in some regional derivatives, chiefly méchine maid, and variants: compare meschyne n.); both adjective and noun survive in Occitan mesquin (adjective) poor, puny, miserable, (noun) wretch. Apparently a fully naturalized English item in quot. a1706, but in later use not fully naturalized in English.