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

• exiguous
• hand-to-mouth
• light
• niggardly
• poor
• scant
• scanty
• scarce
• skimp
• skimpy
• slender
• slim
• spare
• sparing
• sparse
• stingy

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

Opposing QBs had a meager passer rating of 18.1% against his coverage. —Blair Kerkhoff, Kansas City Star, 7 Apr. 2024

Arthur commands a band of bohemian misfits making a meager living as tombaroli or grave-robbers. —Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2024

Wong says of his hefty torch, which replaced the meager cigarette and barbecue lighters of years past, before reaching into a solid brick oven to ignite handfuls of paper representing money into a blaze that sent ashes floating out. —Michael Laris, Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2024

The number of Latina students pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 1 million in 2000 to over 3.5 million in 2021, and in the same time frame, the percentage of degree-holding Latinas quadrupled from a meager 5% to 20%. —Emi Tuyetnhi Tran, NBC News, 1 Mar. 2024

Lexie Simonsen, 18, brought a brown-bag lunch to argue that the meal-site fare was meager and unappealing. —Jason Deparle, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2024

So, why is its valuation so high given its relatively meager revenue? —Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2024

These programs are gaining steam as lawmakers nationwide grapple with the realities of a struggling child care system, including limited child care options and high care costs while child care workers make meager wages. —Journal Sentinel, 26 Mar. 2024

While any job growth is good, that hiring pace looked meager in an otherwise strong US labor market. —Jonathan Lansner, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Mar. 2024

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

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