Meager means disappointingly small in amount. A meager wage, meager rations, meager returns.
It always carries disappointment: a meager amount is not merely small but less than was needed or deserved. It suits wages, portions, harvests and evidence. This is the American spelling; British English writes meagre. Note that the word comes from the Latin for lean or thin, the same root as emaciated.
1adjectivemeagerDisappointingly small in amount.
“The family lived on a meager diet of rice and beans.”
synonyms: scanty, paltry
meager is a quality of scantiness.
Also accepted in games: meagre, scant
Old French maigre comes from Latin macer, lean or thin. Emaciate and the Italian magro come from the same thinness.
Proto-Indo-European
*meh₂ḱ-
Proto-Indo-European
*mh₂ḱrós
Latin
macer
Old French
maigre
Anglo-Norman
megre
Middle English
megre
English, today
meager
From Middle English megre, from Anglo-Norman megre, Old French maigre, from Latin macer, from Proto-Indo-European mh₂ḱrós. Akin, through the Indo-European root, to Old English mæġer (“meager, lean”), West Frisian meager (“meager”), Dutch mager (“meager”), German mager, Old Norse magr whence the Icelandic magur, Norwegian Bokmål mager and Danish mager. a doublet of maigre.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA