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meager
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • He didn't understand why it had taken so long to cross such a meager distance on the way out.   (source)
    meager = small
  • They are denied their meager food rations;   (source)
  • The Gladers around him stood silent, clutching their meager weapons.   (source)
    meager = lacking in quantity or quality
  • When the meager fluid bathed his tongue, he stopped, paused, and then swallowed.   (source)
    meager = small in quantity
  • And if they ever carry out this terrible threat, the meager handful of Jews still left in Holland will have to go.   (source)
    meager = small
  • Now Martin hoped his meager soldiers' pay would help him save up to buy freedom for his family.   (source)
    meager = small in quantity
  • Only one of the candles still burned, a cold, meager light.   (source)
    meager = less than desired
  • He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party.   (source)
    meagreness = skinny (less impressive than desired)
  • Rory had been injured in return for some meager supplies, half of which, things like mosquito netting, were nearly useless.†   (source)
  • It was easy to find the mooring at Worpswede—people saw their meager luggage and willingly told them the way.†   (source)
  • But when a law school classmate, Charles Bliss, moved to Atlanta for a job with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, we realized that if we pooled our meager salaries, we could afford a low-rent apartment.†   (source)
  • He raked through the meager toys, hurling them against the wall.†   (source)
  • It ought to have felt exhilarating, but the girl's eyes had teared up and her face was drooping, and what satisfaction Mariam found from this outburst felt meager, somehow illicit.†   (source)
  • King Baldwin granted the soldiers' request, and the Knights took up their meager residence inside the devastated shrine.†   (source)
  • They were all day on the long black road, stopping in the afternoon to eat sparingly from their meager supplies.†   (source)
  • Eventually it's using more power to keep warm than it's getting from the meager daylight that makes it through the dust.†   (source)
  • The brass buttons on Sergeant Maples's coat, the insignia on his collar, and the badges on his chest all caught the meager courtroom light and held it.†   (source)
  • With the other meager witnesses who had been tapped to stick up for Peter.†   (source)
  • The truth is, we're underfurnished, in a meager house.†   (source)
  • But as I bent down to gather the photos, the crash came again, and in an instant what meager light had shone through the hole in the floor faded away, and I found myself squatting in inky darkness.†   (source)
  • Mom reset her splint, improving my meager attempt to help, and the bandages are fresh.†   (source)
  • What fine food we treated ourselves to with our meager allowances!†   (source)
  • They all lived in fear of Sister Marjorie Drummond, of the menacing meager smile and softening of manner that preceded her fury.†   (source)
  • Only gentle Ella could convince her to eat her meager rations.†   (source)
  • Every night she shrank from the moment when she and Judith must make the dread ascent to the upstairs chamber with only the meager comfort of a warming pan.†   (source)
  • With the last of her meager salary she had bought her daughter small presents wrapped in brown paper with colored paper hearts pasted on.†   (source)
  • We did have a meager emergency reserve, a secret stash of ten gold coins my grandmother had given my mother before we left Narewka.†   (source)
  • She and Shifre were set to work with Rivka in the kitchen hauling water in large buckets from the pump, spooning out the meager meals, washing the giant cauldrons in which the soup cooked, scrubbing the walls and floors.†   (source)
  • He walked from one booth to another, evaluating the goods with a buyer's eye, despite his meager supply of coins.†   (source)
  • From those first meager clues, the bus and the dog, to the vast amount of knowledge we have uncovered about yourself.†   (source)
  • Too many families are wrenched apart, as even children are forced to supplement meager incomes.†   (source)
  • My research was meager, my plots for-mulaic, my characters cardboard, my prose preliterate, and my free time was my own.†   (source)
  • I looked over my meager possessions.†   (source)
  • In spite of his meager graduate student wages he sets aside money to send every few months to his father to help put an extension on his parents' house.†   (source)
  • Which exhausted what meager savings the Olinka had, and nearly wiped out the money Samuel and I had managed to put by for the education of the children once we return home.†   (source)
  • They knew, however, that today's event had the potential to make their success so far seem meager.†   (source)
  • She rests uneasily in the silence, watching ants boil darkly over the crumbs of what seemed, to begin with, an impossibly meager lunch.†   (source)
  • He earned a meager living by polishing lenses, some of which have come into my possession.†   (source)
  • The Mediterranean was black, black off the coast of Italy, black off the coast of Greece, black always, black when in the small cold hours before dawn, as even Claudia slept, weary of her books and the meager fare that caution allowed her vampire hunger, I lowered a lantern down, down through the rising vapor until the fire blazed right over the lapping waters; and nothing came to light on that heaving surface but the light itself, the reflection of that beam traveling constant with me, a steady eye which seemed to fix on me from the depths and say, 'Louis, your quest is for darkness only.†   (source)
  • One year, I remember that our commune experimented with growing peanuts on a few small pieces of land, but it was a disappointingly meager crop.†   (source)
  • Whether seriously in business or on a fun-loving hijirik, make yourself totally homely in this meager environment.†   (source)
  • He went to bed thoroughly exhausted and woke at dawn, stopping just long enough to eat a meager breakfast in the kitchen before riding off to supervise the work in the fields.†   (source)
  • I fumbled through my meager supplies and found Percy Jackson's Led Zeppelin T-shirt.†   (source)
  • The three of them rendered their accounts at dawn, prostrate at his feet to beg forgiveness for their meager profits, and the only gratification they sought was that he go to bed with the one who brought him the most money.†   (source)
  • I'm hunting around through my meager belongings when my mother comes into the room.†   (source)
  • They danced for the rest of the half hour, stopping to swallow their meager lunches only while Signor Carlotti was changing the phonograph between songs.†   (source)
  • Stripped of family and identity, fed meager rations, consigned to hard wooden seats until we are to be, as Slobbery Jack suggested, sold into slavery our mere existence is punishment enough.†   (source)
  • He shined his flashlight up and around, watching as the meager light failed to find the top or even sides of ... What, a cave?†   (source)
  • We'd all do it then until we had used up our meager supply.†   (source)
  • The rest of us—me, Tobias, Caleb, Peter, Christina, Uriah, and Cara—set out with our meager possessions along the railroad tracks.†   (source)
  • He pulls her into his lap, silencing meager protests with full-lipped kisses.†   (source)
  • Then they hitched a horse trailer—loaded with their meager belongings—to the Bronco and headed for Lake Charles, Louisiana.†   (source)
  • I have seen the Nisei in anger, in exuberant spirits, enthusiasm and despair, in the quiet stillness of resignation or renunciation—I've worked beside them in canneries, on farms, in Red Cross groups—I've seen them in poverty and in luxury, in cabins and stuccoed residences, struggling for higher education on meager earnings, or cushioned through college by a parent's wealth—I've known them as mill hands, lumberjacks, clerks, dressmakers, stenos, domestic servants—I've watched them waltz and jitterbug, play baseball, tennis, rugby, golf, and Ping-Pong—I've known them in sickness and in health, at weddings and births and face to face with death.†   (source)
  • There were two surprises in my meager luggage.†   (source)
  • If she had seen Ben, nothing would have made her believe that practically every apartment contained a family, a Bible, and a dream that one day enough could be scraped from those meager Friday night paychecks to make Brewster Place a distant memory.†   (source)
  • Up on the highway, there are two filling stations, one of which doubles as a meagerly supplied grocery store, while the other does extra duty as a cafe-Hartman's Cafe, where Mrs. Hartman, the proprietress, dispenses sandwiches, coffee, soft drinks, and 3.2 beer.†   (source)
  • After all, the pigs might come along and eat the hat, which was one of the solidest comforts in his meager existence.†   (source)
  • Then-as he was talking-a set of tail-lights going past lit up McMurphy's face, and the windshield reflected an expression that was allowed only because he figured it'd be too dark for anybody in the car to see, dreadfully tired and strained and frantic, like there wasn't enough time left for something he had to do ...While his relaxed, good-natured voice doled out his life for us to live, a rollicking past full of kid fun and drinking buddies and loving women and barroom battles over meager honors-for all of us to dream ourselves into.†   (source)
  • The barrage pulverized the meager breastworks, buried men under sod and sand, and kicked up such dust and smoke that there was no possibility of firing back at the enemy.†   (source)
  • Billy wanted to be friendly, to help, if he could, but his resources were meager.†   (source)
  • He is drifting out of range of the whole damn thing, the morning chill, the working wife, the harsh alarm that's getting ready, even as he stands here, to populate his meager sleep.†   (source)
  • Through the open door the moonshine fell into the room in a cold radiance to rival our meager lamplight.†   (source)
  • The pay was meager.†   (source)
  • Our meals at school were meager and taken on the run, so I ate every bit of the beef, and afterward a slice of apple tart with a great hunk of Stilton cheese.†   (source)
  • From this meager beginning had sprung the ineffectual squadron commander who was now spending the better part of each working day in Pianosa forging Washington Irving's name to official documents.†   (source)
  • I dropped out of college because I had accomplished what I wanted from it—a coat-and-tie job—and lent my meager talents to the Talladega Daily Home and then the Anniston Star.†   (source)
  • Taraf Moody allowed me to pack only a few things from our meager supply of clothes.†   (source)
  • There were pitiful leaps, hoarse curses, and several agonizing moments when Nigel's meager arms failed him at the pivotal instant.†   (source)
  • It was a poor thing indeed, and the meager throng that had gathered to watch filled but half the seats.†   (source)
  • He dreamed of buying a fishing boat, though it would be impossible to save enough from his meager earnings.†   (source)
  • I look at my meager supply of blister packs.†   (source)
  • Then I stoked the fire and sat staring into its meager wedge of light.†   (source)
  • Thomas ran his horse at the closest warrior, who pulled up and took a meager swipe at him.†   (source)
  • Reeds and sagebrush dotted the riverbanks as they walked down, and life, meager though it was in this rocky river gorge, seemed lush to Mortenson.†   (source)
  • His eyes seemed to dilate until there was no color left in them: the gunslinger saw this as he struck a meager light.†   (source)
  • He worked on other men's boats as strenuously as his slowly healing body would let him, eking out a meager living for himself and his widowed mother.†   (source)
  • An old soldier who made his way to Zurich-blown up, a cripple, worthless except for certain facts stored away that former comrades paid meagerly to keep suppressed.†   (source)
  • She was an extraordinarily clever and gifted person, whose potential was limited because of her family's meager resources.†   (source)
  • The owners of the diner had generously offered the boys double portions at half-price, but it was still a drain on their meager resources.†   (source)
  • But the results are so at variance with expectations that I have concluded either that the data are too meager, or the horses or riders are not honest.†   (source)
  • The price of a liter of rum keeps most of them, with their monthly coupons and meager earnings, stone-cold sober.†   (source)
  • The altitude, the meager rations, and the hardening of his body exercised his spirit.†   (source)
  • But after Mother dropped off Father's meager belongings and drove away, I clasped my hands together as tightly as I could and whispered, II...and may He deliver me from evil.†   (source)
  • It was a small private airfield, serving the meager traffic of a few industrial concerns still remaining in Afton, She saw a lone attendant hurrying to meet her.†   (source)
  • Though I appreciate the hospitality and generosity that you have shown today," she said, emphasizing the meagerness of our home with a languid movement of her hand, "fate—in the form of your daughter—has brought you an opportunity.†   (source)
  • He spent as much time as he could in the school's meager library, reading through the most challenging books he could find.†   (source)
  • She shopped for food, paid for it out of her meager salary and scrubbed Daisy's kitchen and bathroom without ever being asked.†   (source)
  • He had come from a meager background of unambitious peasants, and though he outwardly boasted of aspirations beyond his station, he was intimidated by the implications of power.†   (source)
  • But I make a living—although meager—through my poetry and performances.†   (source)
  • In his white slacks and white shirt, with his long white hair, he seemed to draw the meager ambient light to himself, glowing softly like an entity at a séance.†   (source)
  • The name of the sword cannot be spoken by your meager human tongue.†   (source)
  • They could be seen behind their counters, wearing black skullcaps, full beards, and long ear-locks, eking out their meager livelihoods and dreaming of Shabbat sand festivals when they could close their stores and turn their attention to their prayers, their rabbi, their God.†   (source)
  • And the single-minded determination that had propelled him through twenty-five years of greengrocering in a famous ghetto of America would serve him a few last days, and through any of my meager execrations.†   (source)
  • But there is order there, too, as they read their newspapers and letters from home and cook their meager breakfast, lunch, and dinner.†   (source)
  • Similarly his brown complexion, unremarkable features, meager body, and natural tendency toward shyness and introspection made him appear simply one of those undifferentiated thousands who throng the streets and buses.†   (source)
  • However, after only twenty minutes on the road they entered a town of fair size, though in New York City such a meager collection of structures would hardly have filled one sorry block.†   (source)
  • Our meager diet made fresh game and fish doubly appreciated.†   (source)
  • Although my meager check didn't go far, I bought a lot of nutritious food during my stay there.†   (source)
  • The second poem was an evocation of spring, a highly original topic, rare among young poets, and the conclusion any fair-minded reader might draw from scanning those twelve meager lines was that if I had really appreciated springtime I would never have debased its memory with that poem.†   (source)
  • Removing her brassiere on the last note, she held it above her head, displaying her meager body with its three tawdry patches of tinsel hanging from it like old Christmas tree decorations.†   (source)
  • He got out his tobacco sack with its meager jingle of silver and bought the men a drink to keep them talking.†   (source)
  • Neither parent apologized for the meagerness of the food.†   (source)
  • Thus she had a certain dependence on him, totally aside from her meager pay.†   (source)
  • While these communications had always been sketchy, and the information meager and confusing, the fact that they were gone entirely was a blow to everyone.†   (source)
  • There might be an occasional meager handhold, but I'd be swinging free and clear, hundreds of feet above the rocks below, and it was a prospect I had no taste for.†   (source)
  • In the stable buck's room a small electric globe threw a meager yellow light.   (source)
    meager = dim (lacking in amount)
  • Just a simple hole in the wall, beyond which lay a small grotto and a meager, crumbling sarcophagus.†   (source)
  • Wild strawberries crawled among a carpet of mosses and ferns, fighting for the meager sunlight.†   (source)
  • That they're too meager and incomplete to extract any meaningful conclusions.†   (source)
  • "And they should be grateful for even that meager allotment," retorted the hare.†   (source)
  • He eventually found meager income as an auto repairman.†   (source)
  • This time he relied upon Sloan's strength-meager as it was-as well as his own.†   (source)
  • Some of my teammates fared even worse than I in the meager air and unhygenic environment.†   (source)
  • The thought brings meager satisfaction, especially after Grady says, Um, I might have told him.†   (source)
  • Inside, along with the rest of our meager possessions, were the Tales.†   (source)
  • Unless she changed course soon, she would pass within hailing distance of his meager refuge.†   (source)
  • We'd pooled our meager resources to buy the food.†   (source)
  • Meager incomes don't guarantee abysmal health statistics, but the two usually go together.†   (source)
  • But his khalasar had been vast, while hers was meager.†   (source)
  • David's meager form approached the dark window with the white smiling face.†   (source)
  • They had gone to sleep in the wagon's meager shade; the shade had moved, but not the Irishmen.†   (source)
  • Typically, we received even less than the meager amounts stipulated in the regulations.†   (source)
  • It's his city I want, not his meager manhood.†   (source)
  • Cotton, Eugene, and the children stood and stared at the meager pile.†   (source)
  • Shivering, Max shut the flap and poked gloomily at their meager fire.†   (source)
  • His meager strength depleted, he curled into an even tighter ball, panting and whimpering.†   (source)
  • I shout it again, as loud as my meager voice can.†   (source)
  • I gazed at the sad pile of belongings—the sum of such meager lives.†   (source)
  • Eragon built a small fire, then ate a meager supper and watched the valley grow black.†   (source)
  • SHADOWS OF THEPAST That night, Eragon sat staring at their meager fire, chewing on a dandelion leaf.†   (source)
  • Taking meager shelter behind the gunwale, he steadied his breath and waited.†   (source)
  • "Bloody crows," he called them, but he'd fed them too, meager though the fare might be.†   (source)
  • His style was extravagant and his resources meager.†   (source)
  • Sloan blinked, his pupils shrinking as they adjusted to the meager light within the forest.†   (source)
  • The feast was a meager enough thing, a succession of fish stews, black bread, and spiceless goat.†   (source)
  • If he takes this meager host to King's Landing, it will be only to die.†   (source)
  • He rummaged through his pack, sorting through his meager possessions.†   (source)
  • He was so hungry, the meager supper had seemed delicious once he overcame his inhibitions.†   (source)
  • Death is never far here, and life is mean and meager.†   (source)
  • He had lank, unruly hair and the gray, meager complexion of an ascetic.†   (source)
  • Hazelle strokes his hair and whispers something while my mother and Prim go through their meager store of painkillers, the kind usually accessible only to doctors.†   (source)
  • Amaranta Ursula defended herself sincerely with the astuteness of a wise woman, weaseling her slippery, flexible, and fragrant weasel's body as she tried to knee him in the kidneys and scorpion his face with her nails, but without either of them giving a gasp that might not have been taken for that breathing of a person watching the meager April sunset through the open window.†   (source)
  • We eat a mishmash of our remaining food—canned peaches, crackers, and snails—leaving one can of salmon for Tigris as meager thanks for all she's done.†   (source)
  • THEPINEWOODCITY Eragon had been in Du Weldenvarden for so long that he had begun to long for clearings, fields, or even a mountain, instead of the endless tree trunks and meager underbrush.†   (source)
  • Every day, he labored from dawn to sundown, plowing his field and turning the soil and tending to his meager pistachio trees.†   (source)
  • His pay could be described as meager at best, but together with the needlework that she and Martha did for a textile firm in the city, it was enough for a modest life.†   (source)
  • But the narrow bed had clean sheets, and there was a trunk with a lock where I could keep my meager possessions.†   (source)
  • He agreed to serve as a director only out of fear that the exposition was indeed at risk of fulfilling the meager expectations of the East and becoming "simply a fair as the term generally implies."†   (source)
  • Olimpia Zuleta seemed to belong to the wasp family, not only because of her high buttocks and meager bosom, but because of everything about her: her hair like copper wire, her freckles, her round, animated eyes that were farther apart than normal, and her melodious voice that she used only for saying intelligent and amusing things.†   (source)
  • Emma made frequent and passionate arguments as to why I should stay, none of which acknowledged the life I would be abandoning (however meager it seemed), or how the sudden inexplicable disappearance of their only child might affect my parents, or the stifling suffocation that Emma herself had admitted feeling inside the loop.†   (source)
  • I've been here before," he murmured, but he could not recall when, because that nightmare jungle and dilapidated mansion bore only meager resemblance to the luminous image he had treasured in his mind ever since his childhood.†   (source)
  • Although the money to hire Chestnut and Boynton was raised by family members through church donations and by financing their meager possessions, local law enforcement interpreted it as evidence of Walter's secret money hoard and double life—confirmation that he wasn't the innocent black man he pretended to be.†   (source)
  • I tore into the food even before I hugged them, but forced myself to stop so that we could all share the meager morsels.†   (source)
  • I felt embarrassed at the meager meals, feeling like I wasn't providing for my family, but Lauren always smiled and kissed me before we ate as if they were the most amazing feasts.†   (source)
  • It had a window, clean walls with white paint, and provided enough space to accommodate an unmarried young man his meager needs.†   (source)
  • A meagreness settled over Avilion.†   (source)
  • Meager, flickering illumination is provided by the burning remains of the Molotov cocktail-carrying Zodiacs, which have become tangled in the net around them.†   (source)
  • Their meager clothes, imposed on them by foreigners, clung to their thin chests and legs like a second skin finally ready to accept the shape of their bodies.†   (source)
  • When he and the child returned from New Jerusalem the next day, Sol went out to water the meager lawn while Rachel played quietly inside.†   (source)
  • He was already signed up for tesserae, which entitled them to a meager supply of grain and oil in exchange for his entering his name extra times in the drawing to become a tribute.†   (source)
  • As we gathered around it and waited our turn to open our meager, constructive gifts, I stared at that pitiful frond decorated with white frangipani angels going brown around the edges, and decided the whole thing would have been better off ignored.†   (source)
  • It was a meager pile.†   (source)
  • So at the last minute he eases up, gets magnanimous-Scott loves these big-spender types-decides to throw in a few hundred Kongbucks over invoice, just so Scott can pull in a meager commission on the deal.†   (source)
  • After Uthar gave a brief speech about the importance of discipline on a ship, the villagers applied themselves to the tasks that required their immediate attention, such as tending to their wounded, unpacking their meager belongings, and deciding upon the most efficient sleeping arrangement for each deck.†   (source)
  • Across the table, Cynthia failed to shoo Connor away as the Irish boy poked methodically at David's meager arm.†   (source)
  • At first I thought he was cranky like the rest of us, because our meager privileges had been taken away.†   (source)
  • He spent a fair amount of his meager pay buying banana beer for their fathers so they would listen as he praised their children.†   (source)
  • It would have come in handy now that her washing-machine fund, which was meager enough to begin with, had been parceled out to all the neighborhood kids.†   (source)
  • I dressed and began my usual ablutions: a quick wash with a dampened rag, a fitful, pulling shave with a knife's edge, and then a meager, rationed morning meal of barley porridge and tea from the officers' mess.†   (source)
  • It was a meager breakfast, but his hunger was slight, and eating a large meal while riding Saphira often made him queasy.†   (source)
  • Tinktink-tink comes the meager payoff.†   (source)
  • Lee sits on a pile of fence rails, in the meager shade of an apple tree bearing the first buds of spring.†   (source)
  • What preposterous madness to float in thin air two miles high on an inch or two of metal, sustained from death by the meager skill and intelligence of two vapid strangers, a beardless kid named Huple and a nervous nut like Dobbs, who really did go nuts right there in the plane, running amuck over the target without leaving his copilot's seat and grabbing the controls from Huple to plunge them all down into that chilling dive that tore Yossarian's headset loose and brought them right back inside the dense flak from which they had almost escaped.†   (source)
  • Papi's disability pension was meager so I don't know how he afforded the gifts he gave us—huge dolls with creamy skin and velvety bows, plastic purses with cartoons on them, colorful barrettes for our hair, which we hid from our mother.†   (source)
  • She grew tired easily and he had yet to urge her beyond the meager trot with which she covered the last fifty yards to where the Director was waiting.†   (source)
  • But the more ominous sound of boots and hoofs-thousands upon thousands marching in cadence up the main street-made the meager defense sound like a children's sideshow.†   (source)
  • I feel nervous about her being here, poking through my meager possessions, shuffling down my hallways, but we can't stay distant forever.†   (source)
  • On one side were those who argued it was best to spend all the available resources, which were still meager, on strategies to prevent the further spread of the disease — that is, on prevention.†   (source)
  • She saved all the meager cash handouts the customers had been giving her and she took a plane to New York, the roach coach, in order to find her mother, who wasn't dead at all—another easy myth.†   (source)
  • Considering the way the war was going, the size and might of the British army, and the pathetic state of Washington's meager band, it seemed the prudent thing to do.†   (source)
  • Coupled with Tara's meager income as a part-time clinical psychologist at Montana State, they were just managing to tread water with their monthly expenses.†   (source)
  • "I wish," said my father one night as we were eating our meager supper in the cabin, "I wish you could do a little studying of a night.†   (source)
  • The engineer had exhausted his meager store of knowledge; he had checked every source of trouble he could think of.†   (source)
  • She became weary all of a sudden, and let her arms fold beneath her as she lay on her side on the meager blanket.†   (source)
  • When Lorenzo was nine years old, the family had scrapped together a meager down payment to buy the house.†   (source)
  • Joan Didion The White Alhum was already awake at 4:00 A.M. when the alarm on my wristwatch began to beep; I'd been awake most of the night, struggling for breath in the meager air.†   (source)
  • That she had four young children, an unemployed and unhappy husband, a job she didn't like with a salary she deemed meager, and a host of other problems—all this mattered little to Jake.†   (source)
  • He needed a moment to recover, but he saw the white head lifting slowly into the air, taking away the angle of the meager barrier.†   (source)
  • At opposite ends of the ballroom, Orren Boyle, who seemed too stout for his full-dress clothes, and Bertram Scudder, who seemed too meager for his, surveyed the crowd of guests with the same thought, though neither of them admitted that he was thinking it.†   (source)
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