Definition of MEAGER

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

With the army survivors thinning out each year, The Return has a quasi-documentary feeling in recounting their bleak lives in Taipei, whose ambitions are limited to squeaking by on a meager military pension and saving up for a funeral plot. — Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter, "'The Return' ('Fu Xiang Xin'): Film Review | Shanghai 2019," 16 June 2019 After hitting a meager .226 with eight RBIs over his first 48 games, first baseman Joey Votto is slashing .345/.400/.517 over his last 15, with a matching eight RBIs. — Houston Chronicle, "On deck: Astros at Cincinnati Reds," 16 June 2019 My wages at the restaurant were meager and inconsistent. — Aram Mrjoian, Longreads, "Bearing the Weight of My Grandfathers’ Old Clothes," 15 June 2019 The International Monetary Fund projects a meager 0.4% uptick in 2019 that will not keep up with population growth. — Jessica Eise, The Conversation, "How an aid gusher helped and hurt Liberia," 14 June 2019 In the meager deserts of southern Namibia, brown hyenas maintain home ranges of up to 1,150 square miles. — Christine Dell'amore, National Geographic, "Hyenas have a bad rap—but they’re Africa’s most successful predator," 14 June 2019 Following this meager schooling, García continued to fish the rivers and estuaries and the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, to help support his family. — Charles David Kleymeyer, Smithsonian, "Meet Juan García Salazar, the Man Who Championed Black Identity in Ecuador," 14 June 2019 Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Krejci, who contributed a meager 0-2—2 line in the Cup Final, has two years left on a deal that still has him No. 1 on the payroll at $7.25 million. — Kevin Paul Dupont, BostonGlobe.com, "What will Don Sweeney do now with this Bruins roster?," 13 June 2019 Despite the claim citing a meager debt of less than $2,000 and the label having master tapes valued at $67 million, by 1976, Stax was done, at least for the time being. — Brody Kenny, Billboard, "How Stax Got Its Groove Back: A 'Soul Explosion' 50th Anniversary Reissue and Retrospective," 12 June 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'meager.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for meager

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.

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