Meagre
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An edible fish, of species Argyrosomus regius, of the family Sciaenidae, found from the Black Sea to the eastern Atlantic.
"1986, A. Wysokiński, The Living Marine Resources of the Southeast Atlantic, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 178, page 48, Among more valuable species some of them are worth mentioning, especially littoral forms as: meagres and other croakers (Sciaenidae), grunters (Pomadasyidae), threadfins (Polynemidae), groupers (Serranidae), snappers (Lutjanidae) […] ."
- 1 To make lean. Canada, UK, common, transitive
"I am meagred to a skeleton; my nose is broiled to flaming heat, and I am suffering the greatest inconvenience from the loss of my baggage which I fear the enemy have taken with my servant at Konigsberg."
- 1 Having little flesh; lean; thin. Canada, UK, common
"[…]meagre were his looks; / Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:"
- 2 Deficient or inferior in amount, quality or extent Canada, UK, common
"Nothing will grow in this meagre soil."
- 3 Of a set: such that, considered as a subset of a (usually larger) topological space, it is in a precise sense small or negligible. Canada, UK, common
- 4 Dry and harsh to the touch (e.g., as chalk). Canada, UK, common
- 1 deficient in amount or quality or extent wordnet
Example
More examples"He lived in a rather meagre house."
Etymology
From Middle French maigre.
From Middle English megre, borrowed from Anglo-Norman megre, Old French maigre, from Latin macer, macrum, from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱrós. Cognate with Old English mæġer (“meagre, lean”), Dutch mager (“lean”), German mager (“lean”), Icelandic magur (“lean”).
Related phrases
More for "meagre"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.