Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Meager \Mea"ger\, Meagre \Mea"gre\, a. [OE. merge, F. maigre, L. macer; akin to D. & G. mager, Icel. magr, and prob. to Gr. makro`s long. Cf. Emaciate, Maigre.]
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Destitue of, or having little, flesh; lean.
Meager were his looks; Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
--Shak. -
Destitute of richness, fertility, strength, or the like; defective in quantity, or poor in quality; poor; barren; scanty in ideas; wanting strength of diction or affluence of imagery; as, meager resources; meager fare. Opposite of ample. [WordNet sense 1] [Narrower terms: exiguous] [Narrower terms: hardscrabble, marginal] [Narrower terms: measly, miserable, paltry] ``Meager soil.''
--Dryden.Syn: meagre, meagerly, scanty.
Of secular habits and meager religious belief.
--I. Taylor.His education had been but meager.
--Motley. (Min.) Dry and harsh to the touch, as chalk.
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less than a desirable amount; -- of items distributed from a larger supply. [WordNet sense 2]
Syn: scrimpy, skimpy, skimping.
Syn: Thin; lean; lank; gaunt; starved; hungry; poor; emaciated; scanty; barren.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"scanty, small, diminutive," 1650s, from Latin exiguus "small, short; petty, paltry, poor, mean; scanty in measure or number; strict," literally "measured, exact," from exigere "drive out, take out" (see exact (v.)). Compare immense "huge," literally "unmeasured."
Wiktionary
a. scanty; meager
WordNet
adj. extremely scanty; "an exiguous budget"
Usage examples of "exiguous".
The debit balance is heavy when you consider the number of British troops and batteries locked up there, and the very exiguous Indian forces which, after a year of war, have reached the field.
Here the squatters garnered practically the whole of their exiguous income, and their tenacious persistence was rapidly making the section degenerate toward a slum.
Mary hunted for the distinctive sonar echo that would guide diem in, Peter stared through the exiguous windows.
Diving suddenly into the recesses of something, she produced an exiguous round silver box.
I blush to say that my venerated ancestor received from Goodman Hancock the painfully exiguous sum of no pounds, no shillings, and sixpence.
The broken nose, the exiguous forehead, and the enlarged ears all clamoured for recognition.
Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain amount of thin, much frizzled hair.
He was conscience-ridden, and snatched exiguous half-hours for Mary and his beetles.
I returned to my room, had a cold bath in the exiguous tub, and changed.
One has only to study the layout and drainage of their houses and towns, their accommodation for washing, their exiguous wardrobes, the absence of proper laundry organization and of destructors for outworn objects, to realize that only usage saved them from a perpetual disgust and nausea.
But the exiguous dimensions of a single alt 640 hoister bar could lift only the weight of the cage, a horse, and six adults to a height of one story.
In some grand metaconcert as diffuse and exiguous as the cosmic background radiation?
The flat-plate communicator above the stowed bunk could access the navigational system, but the exiguous display meant the captain would use it only for cursory checks on the officer with the conn.
The paper trail remains exiguous, and Hitler apparently never signed anything.
In early spring the fields and hillsides were clothed in crocus and viola, white stachys, and yellow sternbergia, and pale lilac colchicum nodded on exiguous stalks amid the already sere grass of the meadows.