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# meagre

«meagre» in Mova's school dictionary: **Small in amount, not enough: «a meagre meal», «meagre wages»** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (meagre — UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ; meager — US; more meagre, most meagre)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Small in amount, not enough: «a meagre meal», «meagre wages». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#m1)

2) (old) Thin, lean. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons on poverty, war and workhouses, people lived on meagre food and meagre pay. In stories it shows hardship: In maths word problems, a meagre amount is a small one.

### examples

- The prisoners ate a meagre meal of bread and water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x1)
- They lived on a meagre wage. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x2)
- We had a meagre harvest after the dry summer. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x3)
- His meagre savings were not enough for a bike. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x4)
- The soup was meagre and thin. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x5)
- In the war, families had meagre rations. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x6)
- She did not touch it; and the next morning she went off again without taking the meagre breakfast which was left out for her. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/#x7)

### note

Spelling: meagre (UK) / meager (US). Pronounced MEE-guh. Similar: scant, scanty, small. Opposite: plentiful, generous.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «meagre» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meagre/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.