Meager
/ˈmiːɡər/noun
Lacking in quantity, quality, or fullness; scanty or lean.
Did you know?Meager comes through Old French from a Latin root meaning “thin” or “slender,” and it shares ancestry with words like major and magnify through the ancient idea of size and measure.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*meg-
“to be great, large”
Latin
Latin
magnus
“large, great”
Latin
Latin
macer
“thin, lean”
Old French
OF
mager
“thin, lean, meager”
Middle English
English
megre
“thin, scanty”
Modern English
English
meager
“scanty, insufficient”