What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Meager vs Paucity - What's the difference?

meager | paucity |

As an adjective meager

is having little flesh; lean; thin.

As a verb meager

is to make lean.

As a noun paucity is

fewness in number; too few.

meager

English

(wikipedia meager)

Alternative forms

* meagre (Commonwealth English)

Adjective

(er)
  • Having little flesh; lean; thin.
  • Poor, deficient or inferior in amount, quality or extent; paltry; scanty; inadequate; unsatisfying.
  • A meager piece of cake in one bite.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1607 , author=Thomas Walkington , title=The Optick Glasse of Humors, or, The touchstone of a golden temperature, or ... , page=54 citation , passage=...that begets many ugly and deformed phantasies in the braine, which being also hot and drie in the second extenuates and makes meager the body extraordinarily, ...}}
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1637 , author=William Shakespeare , title=The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice: With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke ... , page=E5 citation , passage=Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead which rather threatnest then dost promise ought...}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * meagerly * meagerness

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make lean.
  • Anagrams

    * * ----

    paucity

    English

    Noun

  • Fewness in number; too few.
  • * 1915 , , The Golden Slipper , problem 7:
  • But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.
  • * 2006 , Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, " Uncle Sam Wants You," Time , 13 July:
  • Your tax refund might be late, owing to a paucity of number crunchers.
  • A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
  • * 1898 , , "At the Appetite-Cure":
  • Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food.
  • * 1915 , , Michael O'Halloran , ch. 12:
  • Here is where the paucity of our language is made manifest.

    Synonyms

    * dearth, scantiness, scarcity