Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

scanty

[skan-tee]

Example Sentences

adjective

scant in amount, quantity, etc.; barely sufficient.

meager; not adequate.

lacking amplitude in extent or compass.

noun

scanties, very brief underpants, especially for women.

:10

:09

:08

:07

:06

:05

:04

:03

:02

:01

Scanty is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Origin:
1650–60; scant + -y¹; (def. 4) blend of scanty and panties

Related forms

scant·i·ly, adverb

scant·i·ness, noun

un·scant·y, adjective

Synonyms
1, 2. Scanty, meager, sparse refer to insufficiency or deficiency in quantity, number, etc. Scanty denotes smallness or insufficiency of quantity, number, supply, etc.: a scanty supply of food. Meager indicates that something is poor, stinted, or inadequate: meager fare; a meager income. Sparse applies particularly to that which grows thinly or is thinly strewn or sown, often over a wide area: sparse vegetation; a sparse population.

Antonyms
1, 2. plentiful, ample.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To scanty

Example Sentences

In recent summers, it has taken a real search to find a bathing suit that wasn't on the scanty side.

The trigger for this year's drought was last year's scanty monsoon.

We marched into the mansion's courtyard, paid off the donkey driver, and collapsed beside our scanty possessions.

EXPAND

In recent summers, it has taken a real search to find a bathing suit that wasn't on the scanty side.

The trigger for this year's drought was last year's scanty monsoon.

We marched into the mansion's courtyard, paid off the donkey driver, and collapsed beside our scanty possessions.

When my son emailed this column to me, it included an eye-popping pop-up featuring young women in scanty swimsuits.

Scanty foliage is silvery green add to my plant list.

Rivers coursing down from the mountains provide water for agriculture in a region of scanty rainfall.

These appear when sunlight strikes tiny particles too scanty to appear as clouds.

Evidence for what exactly happened and why is scanty and needs careful weighing.

Insufficient chilling results in delayed leafout, a scanty crop, and eventual death of the tree.

In the early part of the year there were indications that pointed to a scanty supply of fish.

There are suspicions of scanty evidence, despite confessions and pleas for leniency.

He was petulant, false and possessed of but a scanty stock of brains.

On the knotty but crucial question of how to reduce deforestation and the emissions it causes, progress was scanty.

Others, however, faulted what they saw as scanty plotting and an overreliance on formulaic set pieces.

So despite its rather scanty record, the ruling coalition is popular at home and abroad.

But on the thorniest issues, the specifics are a little scanty.

But, plausible as this seems, the evidence is scanty.

But the main reason this huge river has always been such a commercial backwater is the scanty population along its course.

Other studies involve how phytoplankton and other algae adapt to scanty or scattered light in turbid water.

Information relating to objects is so scanty and vague as to be meaningless.

From this date the scanty memorials of private life are altogether swallowed up in the vortex of public affairs.

Nothing whatever was saved by the sufferers, except the scanty clothing they had on when the alarm was given.

Among the women, the truth is as jauntily exposed as a pair of scanty underpants twinkling on a laundry line.

Members have included pictures of themselves in scanty attire or suggestive poses.

The country was generally poor, and afforded but a scanty supply of forage for the horses.

They share their scanty rations and labor together.

With scanty resources, he did what he could, and did it fairly well.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

scanty (ˈskæntɪ)

—*adj* , scantier, scantiest
1.	limited; barely enough; meagre
2.	insufficient; inadequate
3.	lacking fullness; small

'scantily

—*adv*

'scantiness

—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

Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com

Searching for scanty?
How many words do you actually know?

FIND OUT

short-commons skimp spare stingy stint threadbare

Matching Quote

"Here were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game."

-Charles Dickens

Partners:Word Bloglines Citysearch The Daily Beast Ask Answers Ask Kids Life123 Sendori Thesaurus

About Privacy Policy Terms of Use API Careers Advertise with Us Contact Us Help