meager

The word 'meager' entered English in the 14th century from the Anglo-French 'megre', meaning 'thin'. This, in turn, descended from the Latin adjective 'macer', which carried the core senses of 'lean, thin, poor'. The Latin term is traced further back to the Proto-Indo-European root 'māk-', meaning 'long, thin'. The semantic journey is a clear and logical progression from the physical description of a thin body or a thin piece of land to the more abstract concept of something being deficient or inadequate in quantity or quality. Thus, a meager meal is one that is figuratively 'thin' or insufficient, and a meager income is one that is 'lean' or poor.

The word 'meager' is a simplex word borrowed from Anglo-French. Its ultimate Latin root is 'macer', meaning 'thin, lean, poor'.