Meagre
[mi:gә(r)]
Definition
(a.) Destitue of, or having little, flesh; lean.
(a.) 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.
(a.) Dry and harsh to the touch, as chalk.
(v. t.) To make lean.
(n.) A large European sciaenoid fish (Sciaena umbra or S. aquila), having white bloodless flesh. It is valued as a food fish.
Inputed by Edgar
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. [Written also Meager.] [1]. Lean, thin, emaciated, spare, poor, lank, gaunt, skinny, fallen away.[2]. Tame, feeble, jejune, vapid, bald, barren, dull, prosing, prosy.
Edited by Elise
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Thin, lean, lank, scanty, barren, dry, tame
ANT:Stout, fat, brawny, abundant, fertile, copious
Editor: Rosanne
Definition
adj. having little flesh: lean: poor: without richness or fertility: barren: scanty: without strength.—adv. Mea′grely.—n. Mea′greness state or quality of being meagre.
Typed by Hester
Examples
- There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon, for two or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- The butcher and the porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- The day's results are meagre, good my lord. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- This is the inventor’s own statement, but it gives a very meagre notion of the many months’ experimenting in his workshop while he hunted for a suitable filament for his electric light. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- My eyes and heart, Yorke, take pleasure in a sweet, young, fair face, as they are repelled by a grim, rugged, meagre one. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- We have just had meagre reports of some such event. Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Gods of Mars.
- It is to be observed that these references can be but of the most meagre kind, and must be regarded as merely throwing a side-light on the subject itself. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- She was not otherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, and looking as old again as she really was. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- The resources of New York are rather meagre, he said; but I'll find a hansom first, and then we'll invent something. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Meagre and spare, like all the other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the place of banishment for the worn-out furniture. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- There sat the meagre charity-seekers, looking as if they were at the doctor's. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- The Edison dynamo, with its large masses of iron, was a vivid contrast to the then existing types with their meagre quantities of the ferric element. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- You are come at last, said the meagre man, gazing on his visitress with hollow eyes. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. Plato. The Republic.
Typed by Hester