Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
computer equipment that would be prohibitively expensive, given the rural school's exiguous resources
Exiguous is so expansive sounding that you might expect it to mean "extensive" instead of "meager." Even a scanty glimpse at the word's etymology will disabuse you of that notion, however. Exiguous derives from the Latin exiguus, which has the same basic meaning as the modern English term. "Exiguus," in turn, derives from the Latin verb exigere, which is variously translated as "to demand," "to drive out," or "to weigh or measure." The idea of weighing or measuring so precisely as to be parsimonious or petty gave "exiguous" its present sense of inadequacy. Just so we aren't accused of being skimpy with the details, we should also mention that "exigere" is the parent term underlying other English words including "exact" and "exigent."
hand-to-mouth, light, meager (or meagre), niggardly, poor, scant, scanty, scarce, skimpy, slender, slim, spare, sparing, sparse, stingy;
adequate, enough, satisfactory, sufficient, tolerable;
deficient, inadequate, insufficient, lacking, short, wanting;
thin on the ground;
What made you want to look up exiguous? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
Difficult Spelling Words Quiz
Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
TAKE THE QUIZ
Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.
TAKE THE QUIZ
