meager

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English megre, also megere,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman megre,^[3][4][5] and Old French megre, a variant of maigre (“thin”),^[6][7][2] from Latin macer (“lean, thin”),^[7][6][4][3] the source also of Spanish magro, Portuguese magro and Italian magro.^[7] The Latin word is related to Ancient Greek μακρός (makrós, “long, tall”),^[8][6][3][4] and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱrós.^[1] Cognate Germanic words, from Proto-Germanic *magraz, include Old English mæger (“lean”), Old High German magar, Dutch mager and Old Norse magr;^[6][9][10] Skeat thought these might be early borrowings from Latin.^[11] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from 1121–25, meaning lean, thin and poor.^[12] In English it is found as a surname from 1179.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a person or animal: lean, thin, wasted: about 1378, in Piers Plowman,^[6][2] where a speaker says that not being able to take revenge makes him "þus megre".^[2] The Middle English Dictionary also has it of plants for "withered".^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word first described bodies made thin by hunger or illness;^[2][13] Chaucer used it twice.^[14] Only in the 16th century did the figurative sense "scanty, poor" emerge:^[5][4] of material things, especially soil and vegetation (1501), of writing or information lacking fullness (1539), of ideas and resources (1638) and of food (1663).^[13] From 1594 it was also applied to personifications such as Famine and Envy.^[13] The spelling meager is first recorded in Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale (1591),^[6] and Johnson (1755) entered the word under that spelling, defining it as "lean; wanting flesh; starven".^[15] A verb meagre, to make lean, was used from 1570 to 1807.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1378 – of a person or animal, lean, thin, wasted.^[6][2]
• early 15th century – noun, leanness (obsolete by the mid 16th century).^[13][3]
• 1501 – poor or scanty, of material things such as soil.^[13]
• 1539 – of writing or information, lacking fullness.^[13]
• 1570 – verb, to make lean (obsolete by 1807).^[16]
• 1591 – the spelling meager, in Spenser.^[6]
• 1663 – of food or diet, scanty.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Small in amount or poor in quality; scanty or inadequate: They lived on a meager pension.^[17][18]
2. Lacking richness, fullness or strength: a meager account of the battle.^[17][18][13]
3. Having little flesh; thin, lean or emaciated.^[17][18][3]

Verb

1. (obsolete, 1570–1807) To make thin or lean.^[16][18]

Word family

• meagerly
• meagerness

Related words

• maigre
• emaciate
• macro-

Usage notes

Meagre is the British spelling and meager the American one.^[17][7][19] Wiktionary notes that meager is also common in Canada.^[1] The British spelling also names a large edible fish of the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, from French maigre, recorded in English from 1569.^[16][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House