meager

adjective

mea·​ger ˈmē-gər 

variants or meagre

1

: having little flesh : thin

meager were his looks, sharp misery had worn him to the bones

—William Shakespeare

2

a

: lacking desirable qualities (such as richness or strength)

leading a meager life

b

: deficient in quality or quantity

a meager diet

meagerly adverb

meagerness noun

Synonyms

• sparse
• scarce
• poor

Choose the Right Synonym for meager

meager, scanty, scant, skimpy, spare, sparse mean falling short of what is normal, necessary, or desirable.

meager implies the absence of elements, qualities, or numbers necessary to a thing's richness, substance, or potency.

a meager portion of meat

scanty stresses insufficiency in amount, quantity, or extent.

supplies too scanty to last the winter

scant suggests a falling short of what is desired or desirable rather than of what is essential.

in January the daylight hours are scant

skimpy usually suggests niggardliness or penury as the cause of the deficiency.

tacky housing developments on skimpy lots

spare may suggest a slight falling short of adequacy or merely an absence of superfluity.

a spare, concise style of writing

sparse implies a thin scattering of units.

a sparse population

Examples of meager in a Sentence

Every morning he eats a meager breakfast of toast and coffee.

We'll have to do the best we can with this year's meager harvest.

She came to this country with a fairly meager English vocabulary, but she is learning more words every day.

They suffered through several meager years at the beginning of their marriage.

Although she's now rich and famous, she remembers her meager beginnings as a child from a poor family.

Recent Examples on the Web

Chiles finished with a meager 130 passing yards on 14-of-28 passing. —Austin Meek, New York Times, 26 Oct. 2025

The defense had held Atlanta to a meager 53 total yards, and only 10 on the ground on nine carries. —Miami Herald, 26 Oct. 2025

The conventional wisdom sees meager job growth as largely a result of immigration restrictions and demographics, disconnected from still-healthy GDP-tracking models that capture urgent capex levels and free spending by the affluent. —Michael Santoli, CNBC, 25 Oct. 2025

Liberation took in $225,705 with a fairly meager attendance-capacity ratio of 64%. —Greg Evans, Deadline, 21 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English megre "thin, having little flesh from lack of food," borrowed from Anglo-French megre, maigre, going back to Latin macr-, macer "thin, lean, of little substance," going back to Indo-European *mh₂ḱ-ro- "long, thin," whence also Germanic *magra- "lean" (whence Old English mæger "lean," Old High German magar, Old Norse magr), Greek makrós "long, tall, high, large"; derivative in *-ro-, adjective suffix, of a base *meh₂ḱ-, *mh₂ḱ- seen also in Latin maciēs "bodily thinness, wasting," Greek mêkos "length," mḗkistos "longest, highest," Avestan masah- "length, greatness," masišta- "highest," Hittite maklant- "thin, slim (of animals)"

Note: Alternatively from Indo-European *maḱ- if a is accepted as a vowel, as the laryngeal h₂ is invoked solely to produce the right vocalism.

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for meager

• eager
• leaguer
• meagre
• segar

Kids Definition

meager

adjective

mea·​ger

variants or meagre

ˈmē-gər 

1

: having little flesh : thin

2

a

: lacking desirable qualities (as richness or strength)

led a meager life

b

: deficient in quality or quantity

a meager serving of meat

meagerly adverb

meagerness noun