meager

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Small in amount and not enough; poor in quality.

   They survived on a meager diet of bread and water.

2. 2
   adj

   Having very little flesh; thin and lean.

   His meager frame showed how little he had eaten.

From Middle English megre, from Anglo-Norman megre, Old French maigre, from Latin macer, from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱrós. Akin, through the Indo-European root, to Old English mæġer (“meager, lean”), West Frisian meager (“meager”), Dutch mager (“meager”), German mager, Icelandic magr whence the Icelandic magur, Norwegian Bokmål mager and Danish mager. Doublet of maigre.

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