meager

adjective

mea·​ger ˈmē-gər 

variants or meagre

1

: having little flesh : thin

meager were his looks, sharp misery had worn him to the bones

—William 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

Synonyms

• exiguous
• hand-to-mouth
• light
• niggardly
• poor
• scant
• scanty
• scarce
• skimp
• skimpy
• slender
• slim
• spare
• sparing
• sparse
• stingy

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

The University of Kinshasa, supported during the Cold War with American financial assistance as the largest center of higher learning in Africa, still has over 29,000 students, but meager resources to support young Congolese who aspire for the same hopes and dreams as us all. —Saleem H. Ali, Forbes, 13 Mar. 2025

Sure, prescribing poetry in the face of societal turbulence can seem a meager or even an escapist response. —Alissa Quart, TIME, 13 Mar. 2025

He's slashed a meager .215/.282/.325 (70 OPS+) while losing playing time to Mark Vientos. —William Lambers, Newsweek, 8 Mar. 2025

The third season of The Traitors is now in the books, with a whopping four Faithfuls splitting the — pretty meager, tbh — $204,000 prize pot. —Joe Reid, Vulture, 7 Mar. 2025

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

Rhymes for meager

• eager
• leaguer
• meagre
• segar

Kids Definition

meager

adjective

mea·​ger

variants or meagre

ˈmē-gər 

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