meager
adj.adj. very small in amount or quality. You use this to describe something that is not enough to satisfy a need.
adj. lacking in quantity, quality, or richness; deficient in amount or substance.
The hikers survived on meager rations of water and bread.
Despite her meager salary, she managed to save enough money to travel abroad every few years.
The historical record provides only a meager account of the event, leaving modern scholars to speculate about the true motivations of the participants.
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, Icelandic magr whence the Icelandic magur, Norwegian Bokmål mager and Danish mager. Doublet of maigre.
Often used to describe abstract or physical resources like income, evidence, or food.
a meager of fooda meager amount of foodMeager is an adjective and cannot be used as a noun; it must modify a noun like 'amount' or 'portion'.