meagre

«meagre» in Mova's school dictionary: Small in amount, not enough: «a meagre meal», «meagre wages» — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

adjective (meagre — UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ; meager — US; more meagre, most meagre)

meaning for a pupil

1) Small in amount, not enough: «a meagre meal», «meagre wages». tree →

2) (old) Thin, lean. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history lessons on poverty, war and workhouses, people lived on meagre food and meagre pay. In stories it shows hardship: In maths word problems, a meagre amount is a small one.

examples

• The prisoners ate a meagre meal of bread and water. tree →
• They lived on a meagre wage. tree →
• We had a meagre harvest after the dry summer. tree →
• His meagre savings were not enough for a bike. tree →
• The soup was meagre and thin. tree →
• In the war, families had meagre rations. tree →
• She did not touch it; and the next morning she went off again without taking the meagre breakfast which was left out for her. tree →

note

Spelling: meagre (UK) / meager (US). Pronounced MEE-guh. Similar: scant, scanty, small. Opposite: plentiful, generous.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «meagre» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.