meager

Alternative forms

• meagre (Commonwealth English)

Etymology

From Middle English megre, from Anglo-Norman megre, Old French maigre, from Latin macer, from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱros. Akin, through the Indo-European root, to Old English mæġer (“meager, lean”), West Frisian meager (“meager”), Dutch mager (“meager”), German mager, Icelandic magr whence the Icelandic magur and Danish mager.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmiɡɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmiːɡə/
• Rhymes: -iːɡə(ɹ)

Adjective

meager (comparative meagerer, superlative meagerest)

1. Having little flesh; lean; thin.
2. Poor, deficient or inferior in amount, quality or extent

   Synonyms: paltry, scanty, inadequate, measly

   A meager piece of cake in one bite.

   • 1607, Thomas Walkington, The Optick Glasse of Humors, or, The touchstone of a golden temperature, or ...‎, page 54:

     ...that begets many ugly and deformed phantasies in the braine, which being also hot and drie in the second extenuates and makes meager the body extraordinarily, ...

   • 1637, William Shakespeare, The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice: With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke...‎, page E5:

     Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead which rather threatnest then dost promise ought...

3. (set theory) Of a set: such that, considered as a subset of a (usually larger) topological space, it is in a precise sense small or negligible.
4. (mineralogy) Dry and harsh to the touch (e.g., as chalk).

Verb

meager (third-person singular simple present meagers, present participle meagering, simple past and past participle meagered)

1. (transitive) To make lean.

Anagrams

• Graeme, meagre

Etymology

From Old Frisian *māger, from Proto-Germanic *magraz, from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱros.

Adjective

meager

1. meager