Every morning he eats a meager breakfast of toast and coffee. We'll have to do the best we can with this year's meager harvest. She came to this country with a fairly meager English vocabulary, but she is learning more words every day. They suffered through several meager years at the beginning of their marriage. Although she's now rich and famous, she remembers her meager beginnings as a child from a poor family.
Recent Examples on the WebOn top of that, interest rates were meager, and the costs of acquisitions were low. Dave Cantin, Forbes, 2 Aug. 2022 Instability, or fuel for storms, will be plentiful, but wind dynamics will be meager. Matthew Cappucci, Washington Post, 8 June 2022 The percentage of women on boards in Nasdaq companies was 30.4%, sitting much higher than the proportion of women on boards of Fortune 500, Russell 3000 and private companies (which come in at 26.5%, 26.7% and a meager 14%, respectively). Olivia Peluso, Forbes, 9 June 2022 Only 8% of Manhattan office workers are back five days a week, and a meager 38% of employees in the office on an average weekday, per the Partnership of New York City. Chloe Berger, Fortune, 9 June 2022 The all-season tires—only the CT4-V offers summers—limit grip to a meager 0.81 g. Scott Oldham, Car and Driver, 14 Aug. 2020 But the meager growth still encouraged investors given the ongoing supply chain headwinds. Grady Mcgregor, Fortune, 30 June 2022 Despite a meager growth in the top line, the firm managed to report a 65% y-o-y jump in the adjusted net income to $7.6 billion. Trefis Team, Forbes, 3 June 2022 For instance, Gusto found that most of the job growth among the states that cut aid early stemmed from places with the highest vaccination rates, while those with low vaccination rates experienced meager job growth. Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 6 Aug. 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Middle English megre "thin, having little flesh from lack of food," borrowed from Anglo-French megre, maigre, going back to Latin macr-, macer "thin, lean, of little substance," going back to Indo-European *mh2ḱ-ro- "long, thin," whence also Germanic *magra- "lean" (whence Old English mæger "lean," Old High German magar, Old Norse magr), Greek makrós "long, tall, high, large"; derivative in *-ro-, adjective suffix, of a base *meh2ḱ-, *mh2ḱ- seen also in Latin maciēs "bodily thinness, wasting," Greek mêkos "length," mḗkistos "longest, highest," Avestan masah- "length, greatness," masišta- "highest," Hittite maklant- "thin, slim (of animals)"
Note: Alternatively from Indo-European *maḱ- if a is accepted as a vowel, as the laryngeal h2 is invoked solely to produce the right vocalism.