meagre

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: mea=gre

CIDE DICTIONARY

meagre, a. [OE. merge, F. maigre, L. macer; akin to D. & G. mager, Icel. magr, and prob. to Gr. makro`s long. Cf. Emaciate, Maigre.].

•  Destitue of, or having little, flesh; lean.  [1913 Webster]

  "Meager were his looks;
  Sharp misery had worn him to the bones."  [1913 Webster]
•  Destitute of richness, fertility, strength, or the like; defective in quantity, or poor in quality; poor; barren; scanty in ideas; wanting strength of diction or affluence of imagery; as, meager resources; meager fare. Opposite of ample.  Dryden.  [1913 Webster]

  "Of secular habits and meager religious belief."  [1913 Webster]

  "His education had been but meager."  [1913 Webster]
•  Dry and harsh to the touch, as chalk.  [1913 Webster]
•  less than a desirable amount; -- of items distributed from a larger supply.  [WordNet 1.5]

Syn. -- Thin; lean; lank; gaunt; starved; hungry; poor; emaciated; scanty; barren.

meagre, v. t. 

 To make lean.  [1913 Webster]

meagre, n. [F. maigre.].

 A large European sciænoid fish (Sciæna umbra or Sciæna aquila), having white bloodless flesh. It is valued as a food fish.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

meagre, adj. (US meager)
1 lacking in amount or quality (a meagre salary).
2 (of literary composition, ideas, etc.) lacking fullness, unsatisfying.
3 (of a person or animal) lean, thin.

Derivative

meagrely adv. meagreness n.

Etymology

ME f. AF megre, OF maigre f. L macer

THESAURUS

meagre

bare, barren, bony, broad, deficient, emaciated, exiguous, gaunt, general, half-starved, inadequate, indefinite, infertile, insufficient, lean, loose, measly, paltry, pathetic, piddling, plain, poor, puny, scant, scanty, scrawny, scrimpy, simple, simplified, skimpy, skinny, spare, sparse, starving, thin, trifling, unadorned, underfed, undernourished, unelaborate, unembellished, unfruitful, unproductive, vague