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“Meager” or “Meagre”

Meager is predominantly used in American (US) English (en-US) while meagre is predominantly used in British English (used in UK/AU/NZ) (en-GB).

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Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 3 prefer “meager” and 6 prefer “meagre”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country meager meagre Preference
United States 91 9 “meager”
United Kingdom 28 72 “meagre”
India 28 72 “meagre”
Philippines 90 10 “meager”
Canada 78 22 “meager”
Australia 37 63 “meagre”
Liberia 0 0 Not enough data
Ireland 35 65 “meagre”
New Zealand 48 52 “meagre”
Jamaica 50 50 No clear preference
Trinidad & Tobago 33 67 “meagre”
Guyana 0 0 Not enough data
Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“meager”

  • …although the remains are too meager to be certain.
  • The meager programming inventory that had occupied…
  • …is heavily disputed due to meager evidence, with most scholars placing…
  • …live off the land with meager supplies for an extended period…
  • …keep a household together on meager funds.
  • There workers spent their meager assets after they had worked…
  • …that Korean stuntmen received were meager at best, and Jung was…
  • …the scaling back of "our meager social safety...leaving those most in…
  • The meager pay she earned teaching forced…
  • …production look better than its meager budget would allow.

“meagre”

  • …willing to endure its laborious convolutions".
  • …Maynard Solomon's analysis of the meagre financial information provided by Leopold…
  • …rival CWJR, with only a meagre amount of pig iron travelling…
  • …difficult to live on her meagre teacher's salary as her ex-husband,…
  • These meagre woodlands lie north of the…
  • …of the early settlers", their "meagre appearance [bearing] eloquen" elsewhere on…
  • …live off the land with meagre supplies for a period of…
  • …the most out of their meagre means.
  • His ERA was a meagre 2.80 over that period, which…
  • His newspaper salary was meagre and, tempted by the much…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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