mea·ger

also mea·gre (mē′gər)

adj.

1. Deficient in quantity, fullness, or extent; scanty.

2. Deficient in richness, fertility, or vigor; feeble: the meager soil of an eroded plain.

3. Having little flesh; lean.

[Middle English megre, thin, from Old French, from Latin macer; see māk- in Indo-European roots.]

mea′ger·ly adv.

mea′ger·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

meagre

(ˈmiːɡə) or

meager

adj

1. deficient in amount, quality, or extent

2. thin or emaciated

3. lacking in richness or strength

[C14: from Old French maigre, from Latin macer lean, poor]

ˈmeagrely, ˈmeagerly adv

ˈmeagreness, ˈmeagerness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

meagre - deficient in amount or quality or extent; "meager resources"; "meager fare"

meager, meagerly, scrimpy, stingy

scarce - deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand; "fresh vegetables were scarce during the drought"

minimal, minimum - the least possible; "needed to enforce minimal standards"; "her grades were minimal"; "minimum wage"; "a minimal charge for the service"

insufficient, deficient - of a quantity not able to fulfill a need or requirement; "insufficient funds"

meagre

adjective insubstantial, little, small, poor, spare, slight, inadequate, pathetic, slender, scant, sparse, deficient, paltry, skimpy, puny, measly, scanty, exiguous, scrimpy a meagre 3% pay rise

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

هَزيل، ضئيل

hubenýskrovný

ringe

dürftig karg

maigre mesquin avarecorb

magur; rÿr, fátæklegur

esiguo scarno scarso

skurdumasskurdusskurdžiai

nepietiekamsvājš

skral

az yetersiz

贫乏的贫弱的

meagre

meager (US) [ˈmiːgəʳ] ADJ [amount, salary, rations] → escaso, exiguo
he eked out a meagre existence as a labourer → a duras penas se ganaba la vida trabajando de peón
his salary is a meagre £350 a month → gana unas míseras 350 libras al mes

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

meagre

[ˈmiːgə^r] (British) meager (US) adj [supply, resources, pay rise] → maigre before n

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

meagre

, (US) meager

adj

→ spärlich; amount, crowd → kläglich; meal → dürftig, kärglich; to eke out a meagre existence → ein kümmerliches Dasein fristen; he earns a meagre £500 a month → er verdient magere or mickrige (inf) → £ 500 im Monat

(liter: = lean) → hager

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

meagre

meager (Am) [ˈmiːgəʳ] adj → magro/a

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

meagre

(American) meager (ˈmiːgə) adjective

poor or not enough. meagre earnings.

ˈmeagrely adverb

ˈmeagreness noun

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Their meagre physical experiences, plus their meagre intellectual experiences, made a negative sum so vast that it overbalanced their wholesome morality and healthful sports.

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He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in the little porch before his door.

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As the journals, on which I chiefly depended, had been kept by men of business, intent upon the main object of the enterprise, and but little versed in science, or curious about matters not immediately bearing upon their interest, and as they were written often in moments of fatigue or hurry, amid the inconveniences of wild encampments, they were often meagre in their details, furnishing hints to provoke rather than narratives to satisfy inquiry.

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The name says, indeed, so exactly and so fully what they are that little remains for their bibliographer to add beyond the meagre historical detail here given.

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Now, I am seldom out on a really grassy wicket for such a meagre score, and as David and I changed places without a word, there was a cheery look on his face that I found very galling.

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Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

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And now the sun went quite down; the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and chin that almost met one another.

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When Ethan was called back to the farm by his father's illness his mother gave him, for his own use, a small room behind the untenanted "best parlour." Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a "minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at Worcester.

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He was a small man to begin with; and upon his meagre frame was deposited an even more strikingly meagre head.

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The meagre herbage of the prairie, promised nothing, in favour of a hard and unyielding soil, over which the wheels of the vehicles rattled as lightly as if they travelled on a beaten road; neither wagons nor beasts making any deeper impression, than to mark that bruised and withered grass, which the cattle plucked, from time to time, and as often rejected, as food too sour, for even hunger to render palatable.

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Any one who had looked at him as the red light shone upon his pale face, strange straining eyes, and meagre form, would perhaps have understood the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread, and suspicion with which he was regarded by his neighbours in Raveloe.

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His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow.

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