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Exiguous vs Tenuous - What's the difference?

exiguous | tenuous |

As adjectives the difference between exiguous and tenuous

is that exiguous is scanty; meager while tenuous is thin in substance or consistency.

exiguous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • scanty; meager
  • * 1889 — ch XIII
    • The herdboy in the broom, already musical in the days of Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps pains) the lark with this exiguous pipe.
  • * 1912 — ch VII
    • The path on which I then planted my feet was quite unprecedentedly narrow. I had never had to walk along a thoroughfare so exiguous .
  • * 1998 — Michael Ignatieff, Rebirth of a Nation: An Anatomy of Russia . New Statesman, Feb 6.
    • They are entering the market, setting up stalls on snowy streets, moonlighting to supplement exiguous incomes.
  • * 2001 — Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats: A Critical Biography .
    • Among the pressures provoking these distresses were a father's financial inadequacy and a growing awareness that, by finding employment himself, he could ameliorate the family's exiguous circumstances.
  • * 2012 — Rodger Cohen, Scottexalonia Rising, New York Times, Nov. 26., Op. Ed.
    • National politics, as President François Hollande of France is only the latest to discover, is often no more than tweaking at the margins in the exiguous political space left by markets and other global forces.

    Derived terms

    * exiguity * exiguously * exiguousness

    tenuous

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Thin in substance or consistency.
    • The aether was thought to be of tenuous strands.
  • insubstantial
    • His argument was not convincing in the debate, considering how tenuous it was.
  • * July 18 2012 , Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises [http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/]
    • Picking up eight years after The Dark Knight left off, the film finds Gotham enjoying a tenuous peace based on Harvey Dent’s moral ideals rather than the ugly truth of his demise.