1. A person who is a stingy hoarder of money and possessions and who doesn’t share or spend any of it with anyone else: Although David Williams was wealthy, he was a miser who lived a miserable life alone and without any friends.
2. Etymology: from "miserable person, wretch," from Latin miser, "unhappy, wretched, pitiable, in distress"; of unknown origin.

The original sense is now obsolete, the main modern meaning of "money-hoarding person" comes from an assumed unhappiness of such a person.

This word is not derived from the Greek miso- (hate) element even though there is a similarity in form, and also that a miser is usually hated or despised.