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Measly

//ˈmiːzli// adj, slang

Definitions

Adjective

1
Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms).
"Then take five or six apples, pick out the cores and fill up the holes thus made with flour of brimstone; stop up the holes and cast in the apples to the measly hog."
2
Of a person: infected with measles.
"A measly boy, he looked like a tramp, probably one of the street boys from the village, just walked up here and made himself at home, and when I told him to leave, he wouldn't."
3
Small (especially contemptibly small) in amount. figuratively, informal
"For one whole day's work all I was given was twenty measly pounds."

Adjective

1
contemptibly small in amount wordnet

Etymology

From measle (“singular of measles”) + -y; the word measle is either from Middle Dutch masel (“a blister filled with blood; a pustule, a skin blemish”), or Middle Low German masel (“a red skin blemish”), from Proto-Germanic *masuraz (“a knot or scar in wood; a knarl”), from *mas-, *mēs- (“a spot; a sore; a scar”), from Proto-Indo-European *mos- (“a skin sore”).

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