meager
48
4.8
- adjective
- /ˈmiːɡər/
- US
:
escaso
- You might think it would be hard to adjust to a meager government salary.
- meager resources
- meager subsistence
- a meager income
They're self funding this on a meager salary.
- They're self funding this on a meager salary.
- Alongside wounded veterans, some will decide to take action against the meager state support.
- Virtue rejoices in present goods, has no longing for what is absent, finds nothing meager that will suffice.
- I couldn't have afforded to do a PhD otherwise because I really had no money beyond a very meager scholarship.
- Angel was right about the meagre benefits and high costs of war, but was wrong about the rationality of nations.
- So any of you who watched it know that Tom Ripley is a guy who comes from very, very meager beginnings.
- You know, I was like living pretty, you know, meager means.
- And we took my sperm count then and it was rather meager.
- We're less likely to, you know, toil in a field under a king who gives us like these meagre rations.
Examples
-
Despite her meager resources, she managed to help her neighbors in need.
-
Despite an interior location and meager natural resources, industries and population in the city expanded markedly.
Academic text (1993) -
While soldiers received military pay, most did not live on just their meager army income.
Academic text (2011) -
To attack a force of over a thousand ships with our meager force is suicide.
-
For 10 years, they carved out a meager living and had a fantastic time doing it.
Academic text (2008) -
Our crops are meager, our fortune all but gone.
-
As Runciman has noted, the meager water supply was one of the most urgent problems.
Academic text (1991) -
Although highly popular with its beneficiaries, it offers an increasingly meager package of benefits.
Academic text (1999) -
I couldn't have afforded to do a PhD otherwise because I really had no money beyond a very meager scholarship.
-
They discovered that these mothers were supplementing the meager amounts of food the kids had with shrimp.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Not large in size or amount
838
1.0
Not good enough in quality or amount
162
2.0
Not very good at a skill or task
122
3.5
Only just enough, with no extra things
118
4.4
Not enough or not good enough to do what is needed
87
2.0
Small in amount or number, not large
86
3.6
Not enough in amount or quality to meet a need
56
3.4
Very small and weak, not impressive
35
4.3
Not having enough of something needed
30
5.5
A small amount that is barely enough
30
7.6
Very weak and not likely to be important or true
29
6.3
Too small to be useful
22
7.1
Very small and not important, not worth paying attention to
5
5.3
Too small in amount or size for what is needed
4
4.4
Small in amount and not enough for what you need
2
6.6
A small amount or number that is barely enough
Too small to be enough
Very small in amount or number
Antonyms
How Meager
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word meager comes from the old Latin word macer meaning 'thin', and that image of thinness came to mean 'small' or 'not enough'. You can see the same root idea in emaciated, which means very thin, so meager now describes amounts or quality that are too small or poor.