In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
MEAGERLY
meager, meagre, meagerly, stingy, scrimpy
(adjective) deficient in amount or quality or extent; “meager resources”; “meager fare”
meagerly, sparingly, slenderly, meagrely
(adverb) to a meager degree or in a meager manner; “these voices are meagerly represented at the conference”; “the area is slenderly endowed with natural resources”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adverb
meagerly (comparative more meagerly, superlative most meagerly)
In a meager way; poorly; inadequately.
Anagrams
• meagrely
Source: Wiktionary
Mea"ger*ly, Mea"gre*ly, adv.
Definition: Poorly; thinly.
MEAGER
Mea"ger, Mea"gre, a. Etym: [OE. merge, F. maigre, L. macer; akin to D. & G. mager, Icel. magr, and prob. to Gr. 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.)
Definition: 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.
Definition: To make lean. [Obs.]
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
29 March 2025
THOUGHTLESS
(adjective) without care or thought for others; “the thoughtless saying of a great princess on being informed that the people had no bread; ‘Let them eat cake’”
Coffee Trivia
