Word of the Day Archive
Saturday October 6, 2007
exiguous \ig-ZIG-yoo-us\
, adjective:
Extremely scanty; meager.
They are entering the market, setting up stalls on snowy streets, moonlighting to supplement exiguous incomes.
-- Michael Ignatieff, "Rebirth of a Nation: An Anatomy of Russia", New Statesman, February 6, 1998
Among the pressures provoking these distresses were a father's financial inadequacy and a growing awareness that, by finding employment himself, he could ameliorate the family's exiguous circumstances.
-- Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats: A Critical Biography
Exiguous comes from Latin exiguus, "strictly weighed; too strictly weighed," hence "scanty, meager," from exigere, "to determine; to decide; to weigh."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for exiguous
