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meager
Use
Meager
in a sentence
mea·ger
/
ˈmi
gər
/
Show Spelled
[
mee
-ger
]
Show IPA
adjective
1.
deficient in quantity or quality; lacking fullness or richness; scanty; inadequate:
a meager salary; meager fare; a meager harvest.
2.
having little flesh; lean; thin:
a body meager with hunger.
3.
maigre
.
Also,
especially British,
mea·gre.
Origin:
1300–50;
Middle English
megre
<
Old French
maigre
<
Latin
macer
lean
Related forms
mea·ger·ly,
adverb
mea·ger·ness,
noun
Synonyms
1.
See
scanty
.
2.
gaunt, spare, skinny.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Meager
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00:10
Meager
is always a great word to know.
So is
flibbertigibbet
. Does it mean:
So is
ninnyhammer
. Does it mean:
So is
slumgullion
. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
meagre
or
meager
(ˈmiːɡə)
—
adj
1.
deficient in amount, quality, or extent
2.
thin or emaciated
3.
lacking in richness or strength
[C14: from Old French
maigre,
from Latin
macer
lean, poor]
meager
or
meager
—
adj
[C14: from Old French
maigre,
from Latin
macer
lean, poor]
'meagrely
or
meager
—
adv
'meagerly
or
meager
—
adv
'meagreness
or
meager
—
n
'meagerness
or
meager
—
n
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
meager
c.1300, "lean, thin, emaciated" (of persons or animals), from O.Fr. megre, maigre, from L. macrum (nom. macer) "lean, thin," from PIE *makro- (see
macro
-). Of material things (land, food, etc.) from 1501.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Example sentences
Then they gather in clusters of six or seven, each group taking shelter behind
a small dune and kindling a
meager
fire.
And he is doing so with
meager
funding and only a small band of supporters.
The monthly handout disappears on
meager
amounts of food.
More important perhaps, the
meager
budget for a weekly television show
precluded landing a huge starship every week.
Most adaptations center around avoiding heat, conserving water and surviving on a
meager
food supply.
We can have a generous program funded by high contributions or a
meager
program funded by low contributions or no program at all.
Once inside, the already
meager
food and beverage choices get thinner.
Despite the
meager
payoffs of their degrees, many graduates think the solution is more education--and more debt.
Most actors have such
meager
incomes that they abandon acting as a career.
But compared with those of my fellow ballplayers, my physical gifts were
meager
.
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Matching Quote
"I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms."
-Calvin Coolidge
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