Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Meager

Mea′ger, Mea′gre, a. [OE. merge, F. maigre, L. macer; akin to D. & G. mager, Icel. magr, and prob. to Gr. μακρός long. Cf. Emaciate, Maigre.]

1. Destitue of, or having little, flesh; lean.

Meager were his looks; Sharp misery had worn him to the bones. Shak.

2. Destitute of richness, fertility, strength, or the like; defective in quantity, or poor in quality; poor; barren; scanty in ideas; wanting strength of diction or affluence of imagery. "Meager soil." Dryden.

Of secular habits and meager religious belief. I. Taylor.

His education had been but meager. Motley.

3. (Min.) Dry and harsh to the touch, as chalk.

Syn. — Thin; lean; lank; gaunt; starved; hungry; poor; emaciated; scanty; barren.

Mea′ger, Mea′gre, v. t. To make lean. [Obs.]

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.