scant

• POS: Adjective, Verb (transitive), Adverb

CIDE DICTIONARY

scant, a. [Icel. skamt, neuter of skamr, skammr, short; cf. skamta to dole out, to portion.].

•  Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; less than is wanted for the purpose; scanty; meager; not enough; as, a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment.  [1913 Webster]

  "His sermon was scant, in all, a quarter of an hour."  [1913 Webster]
•  Sparing; parsimonious; chary.  [1913 Webster]

  "Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- See under Scanty.

scant, v. t. 

•  To limit; to straiten; to treat illiberally; to stint; as, to scant one in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries.  [1913 Webster]

  "Where a man hath a great living laid together and where he is scanted."  [1913 Webster]

  "I am scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on your actions."  [1913 Webster]
•  To cut short; to make small, narrow, or scanty; to curtail.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

scant, v. i. 

 To fail, or become less; to scantle; as, the wind scants.  [1913 Webster]

scant, adv. 

 In a scant manner; with difficulty; scarcely; hardly.  Bacon.  [1913 Webster]
"So weak that he was scant able to go down the stairs."  [1913 Webster]

scant, n. 

 Scantness; scarcity.  T. Carew.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

scant, adj. & v.
--adj. barely sufficient; deficient (with scant regard for the truth; scant of breath).
--v.tr. archaic provide (a supply, material, a person, etc.) grudgingly; skimp; stint.

Derivative

scantly adv. scantness n.

Etymology

ME f. ON skamt neut. of skammr short

THESAURUS

scant

Lenten, Spartan, abstemious, angustifoliate, angustirostrate, angustisellate, angustiseptal, arrested, ascetic, austere, bankrupt in, bare of, begrudge, bereft of, bound, callow, cheeseparing, chinchy, chintzy, circumscribed, close, close-fitting, condition, confine, confined, constricted, contain, copyright, cramp, cramped, crowded, defective, deficient, denuded of, deprived of, destitute of, devoid of, discipline, draw the line, dwarfed, dwarfish, embryonic, empty of, exiguous, failing, famish, for want of, forlorn of, frugal, grudge, hedge about, hypoplastic, immature, impoverished, in arrear, in arrears, in default, in default of, in short supply, in want of, inadequate, incapacious, incommodious, incomplete, infant, infrequent, insufficiency, insufficient, isthmian, isthmic, jejune, lacking, lean, limit, limited, live upon nothing, meager, mean, miserly, missing, moderate, narrow, near, needing, niggard, niggardly, out of, out of pocket, paltry, parsimonious, part, partial, patchy, patent, paucity, piddling, pinch, pinch pennies, poor, poverty, puny, qualify, rare, register, restrain, restrict, restricted, save-all, scamp, scant of, scanty, scarce, scarceness, scattered, scrappy, scrawny, screw, scrimp, scrimping, scrimpy, seldom met with, seldom seen, short, short of, shy, shy of, sketchy, skimp, skimping, skimpy, slender, slight, slim, small, spare, sparing, sparse, specialize, spotty, sprinkled, starvation, starve, stingy, stint, stinted, strait, straiten, straitened, stunted, subsistence, thin, tight, tightfisted, unblessed with, underdeveloped, undeveloped, unnourishing, unnutritious, unpossessed of, void of, wanting, watered, watery

ROGET THESAURUS

scant

Insufficiency

N insufficiency, inadequacy, inadequateness, incompetence, deficiency, imperfection, shortcoming, paucity, stint, scantiness, none to spare, bare subsistence, scarcity, dearth, want, need, lack, poverty, exigency, inanition, starvation, famine, drought, dole, mite, pittance, short allowance, short commons, half rations, banyan day, emptiness, poorness, depletion, vacancy, flaccidity, ebb tide, low water, a beggarly account of empty boxes, indigence, insolvency, drain of resources, impoverish, stint, put on short allowance, do insufficiently, scotch the snake, Adj, insufficient, inadequate, too little, not enough, unequal to, incompetent, weighed in the balance and found wanting, perfunctory, deficient, wanting imperfect, ill-furnished, ill-provided, ill- stored, ill-off, slack, at a low ebb, empty, vacant, bare, short of, out of, destitute of, devoid of, bereft of, denuded of, dry, drained, unprovided, unsupplied, unfurnished, unreplenished, unfed, unstored, untreasured, empty-handed, meager, poor, thin, scrimp, sparing, spare, stinted, starved, starving, halfstarved, famine-stricken, famished, jejune, scant, scarce, not to be had, not to be had for love or money, not to be had at any price, scurvy, stingy, at the end of one's tether, without resources, in want, in debt, insufficiently, in default of, for want of, failing, semper avarus eget.

Smallness

N smallness, littleness, tenuity, paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance), mediocrity, moderation, small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace, minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight, whit, tittle, shade, shadow, spark, scintilla, gleam, touch, cast, grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau, screed, smack, tinge, tincture, inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet, flitter, gobbet, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive, snip, snippet, snick, snack, snatch, slip, scrag, chip, chipping, shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair, nutshell, thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean, animalcule, trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity, small, little, diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable, paltry, faint, slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited, meager, sparing, few, low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb, halfway, moderate, modest, tender, subtle, inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small, atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent, to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly, imperceptibly, miserably, wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly, faintly, passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about, thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand, dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, small sands the mountain, moments make the year.

Fewness

N fewness, paucity, small number, small quantity, rarity, infrequency, handful, maniple, minority, exiguity, reduction, weeding, elimination, sarculation, decimation, eradication, few, scant, scanty, thin, rare, scattered, thinly scattered, spotty, few and far between, exiguous, infrequent, rari nantes, hardly any, scarcely any, to be counted on one's fingers, reduced, unrepeated, rarely, here and there.

Littleness

N littleness, smallness, exiguity, inextension, parvitude, parvity, duodecimo, Elzevir edition, epitome, microcosm, rudiment, vanishing point, thinness, dwarf, pygmy, pigmy, Liliputian, chit, pigwidgeon, urchin, elf, atomy, dandiprat, doll, puppet, Tom Thumb, Hop-o'-my-thumb, manikin, mannikin, homunculus, dapperling, cock-sparrow, animalcule, monad, mite, insect, emmet, fly, midge, gnat, shrimp, minnow, worm, maggot, entozoon, bacteria, infusoria, microzoa, phytozoaria, microbe, grub, tit, tomtit, runt, mouse, small fry, millet seed, mustard seed, barleycorn, pebble, grain of sand, molehill, button, bubble, point, atom, fragment, powder, point of a pin, mathematical point, minutiae, micrometer, vernier, scale, microphotography, photomicrography, micrography, photomicrograph, microphotograph, microscopy, microscope (optical instruments), little, small, minute, diminutive, microscopic, microzoal, inconsiderable, exiguous, puny, tiny, wee, petty, minikin, miniature, pygmy, pigmy, elfin, undersized, dwarf, dwarfed, dwarfish, spare, stunted, limited, cramp, cramped, pollard, Liliputian, dapper, pocket, portative, portable, duodecimo, dumpy, squat, short, impalpable, intangible, evanescent, imperceptible, invisible, inappreciable, insignificant, inconsiderable, trivial, infinitesimal, homoeopathic, atomic, subatomic, corpuscular, molecular, rudimentary, rudimental, embryonic, vestigial, weazen, scant, scraggy, scrubby, thin, granular, shrunk, brevipennate, in a small compass, in a nutshell, on a small scale, minutely, microscopically.

Thinness

N narrowness, thinness, narrowness, closeness, exility, exiguity, line, hair's breadth, finger's breadth, strip, streak, vein, monolayer, epitaxial deposition, thinness, tenuity, emaciation, macilency, marcor, shaving, slip, thread paper, skeleton, shadow, anatomy, spindleshanks, lantern jaws, mere skin and bone, middle constriction, stricture, neck, waist, isthmus, wasp, hourglass, ridge, ghaut, ghat, pass, ravine, narrowing, coarctation, angustation, tapering, contraction, narrow, close, slender, thin, fine, thread-like, finespun, gossamer, paper-thin, taper, slim, slight-made, scant, scanty, spare, delicate, incapacious, contracted, unexpanded &c (expand), slender as a thread, emaciated, lean, meager, gaunt, macilent, lank, lanky, weedy, skinny, scrawny slinky, starved, starveling, herring gutted, worn to a shadow, lean as a rake, thin as a lath, thin as a whipping post, thin as a wafer, hatchet-faced, lantern-jawed, attenuated, shriveled, extenuated, tabid, marcid, barebone, rawboned, monomolecular.