meager
English · Thesaurus
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meager
- /ˈmiɡɚ/ US
- /ˈmiːɡə/ UK
Rhymes with -iːɡə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From Middle English megre, from Anglo-Norman megre, Old French maigre, from Latin macer, from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱrós. Akin, through the Indo-European root, to Old English mæġer (“meager, lean”), West Frisian meager (“meager”), Dutch mager (“meager”), German mager, Old Norse magr whence the Icelandic magur,
Norwegian Bokmål mager and Danish mager. Doublet of maigre.
adjective meagerer · meagerest · meagre
- Having little flesh; lean; thin.
-
Poor, deficient or inferior in amount, quality or extent
A meager piece of cake in one bite.
Similar: paltry, scanty, inadequate, measly, miserly, exiguous, Lenten
-
Of a set: such that, considered as a subset of a (usually larger) topological space, it is in a precise sense small or negligible.
Opposite: dense
- Dry and harsh to the touch (e.g., as chalk).
verb meagers · meagering · meagered · meagre
- To make lean.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: exiguous, scrimpy, scanty, spare, paltry, hand-to-mouth, stingy, ungenerous, miserable, bare, marginal, hardscrabble, measly, meagre, scrawny, scant
Translations
Talk about this word "meager." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/meager. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. meager. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/meager "meager." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/meager.Cite this
@misc{meager_2026,
title = {meager},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/meager},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
