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“Meager” or “Meagre”

Language

Meager and meagre are both English terms.

Usage

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).

In terms of actual appearance and usage, here's a breakdown by country, with usage level out of 100 (if available) 👇:

Term US UK India Philippines Canada Australia Liberia Ireland New Zealand Jamaica Trinidad & Tobago Guyana
meager 91 28 28 90 78 37 0 35 48 50 33 0
meagre 9 72 72 10 22 63 0 65 52 50 67 0

  • In the United States, there is a preference for "meager" over "meagre" (91 to 9).
  • In the United Kingdom, there is a 72 to 28 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In India, there is a 72 to 28 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In the Philippines, there is a preference for "meager" over "meagre" (90 to 10).
  • In Canada, there is a preference for "meager" over "meagre" (78 to 22).
  • In Australia, there is a 63 to 37 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In Liberia, there is not enough data to determine a preference between "meager" and "meagre".
  • In Ireland, there is a 65 to 35 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In New Zealand, there is a 52 to 48 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In Jamaica, there is no clear preference between "meager" and "meagre", with usage levels of 50 vs. 50.
  • In Trinidad & Tobago, there is a 67 to 33 preference for "meagre" over "meager".
  • In Guyana, there is not enough data to determine a preference between "meager" and "meagre".
Examples

Below, we provide some examples of when to use meager or meagre with sample sentences.

Trends

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Examples in Context

Examples of “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.

Examples of “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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