meager

adjective

mea·​ger ˈmē-gər How to pronounce meager (audio)
variants or meagre
1
: having little flesh : thin
meager were his looks, sharp misery had worn him to the bonesWilliam 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
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 Kerry clearly grasps the consequences of meager climate ambitions. Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 4 Mar. 2024 The Arizona House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed two bills that would put tighter controls on an industry that has long operated with little oversight and meager penalties for endangering residents. Sahana Jayaraman, The Arizona Republic, 29 Feb. 2024 See for example Microsoft’s meager returns to the business of its successful Agile teams in 2008-2014, compared to the massive gains to the business once the whole firm embraced Agile mindsets that led methodologies at the team level. Steve Denning, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024 But Lynch once again will have a surplus of draft picks, in addition to a good starting QB in Brock Purdy, 24, whose meager salary will enable ample spending on a star-laden roster. Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Feb. 2024 Patel plays Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Jan. 2024 Volkswagen, which also owns Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini, is aiming to at least double its market share in the United States by the end of the decade from a meager 4 percent now. Jack Ewing, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2024 That century of meager multiples translated into high returns, displayed in the blue line of the graph. William Baldwin, Forbes, 17 Feb. 2024 His kitchen was a pop-up table, littered with detritus and meager foodstuffs. Alexander Smith, NBC News, 13 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'meager.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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

Time Traveler
The first known use of meager was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near meager

Cite this Entry

“Meager.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meager. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

meager

adjective
mea·​ger
variants or meagre
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

More from Merriam-Webster on meager

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