Meaning & use
meagre
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Too small in amount or quality to satisfy a need.
Grammar: Comes before a noun or after 'be': a meagre meal; his income was meagre.
Patterns
- a meagre income
- meagre resources
The family lived on a meagre income after the factory closed.
We shared the meagre rations until the rescue boat arrived.
Her meagre savings would not cover the repairs.
adjectivecomparableliterary
Thin and underfed in appearance.
Grammar: Describes a person or face; this sense is now literary.
Patterns
- a meagre face
The meagre child stood at the gate, shivering in the rain.
A meagre figure appeared at the door, hunched against the cold.
His face looked meagre and drawn after the long illness.
Word forms
| comparative | meagrer |
|---|---|
| superlative | meagrest |
Common combinations
- meagre income
- They raised four children on a meagre income.
- meagre wages
- The miners complained about meagre wages.
- meagre rations
- The soldiers survived on meagre rations for weeks.
- meagre savings
- His meagre savings vanished in a month.
- meagre resources
- The school made do with meagre resources.
- meagre meal
- They sat down to a meagre meal of bread and soup.
Synonyms and how they differ
- scant
- It stresses that there is hardly any of something, and it is often used for attention, evidence or information.
- paltry
- It carries more contempt, suggesting the amount is so small it is almost insulting.
- skimpy
- It is informal and often applies to clothing, portions or details that are less than expected.
- sparse
- It describes things spread thinly, such as hair or population, and is less about falling short of a need.
Opposites
Word family
- meagrely adverb
- in a small, inadequate way
- meagreness noun
- the state of being too small or scanty
- meager adjective
- the American spelling
Commonly confused: meagre or meager?
meagre vs meager
This is only the American spelling of the same word, so there is no difference in meaning.
Practice
The workers could barely feed their families on such a ____ salary.
Choose one answer.
'Meagre' describes an amount too small to meet needs, matching 'barely feed'. The other options all suggest plenty, which contradicts the sentence.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “meagre”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.