| English Dictionary |
SCANTY (scantier, scantiest)
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
| IPA (US): |  |
, scantiest Dictionary entry overview: What does scanty mean?
• SCANTY (noun)
The noun SCANTY has 1 sense:
1. short underpants for women or children (usually used in the plural)
Familiarity information: SCANTY used as a noun is very rare.
• SCANTY (adjective)
The adjective SCANTY has 2 senses:
1. lacking in magnitude or quantity
2. (of clothing) revealing the body
Familiarity information: SCANTY used as an adjective is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Short underpants for women or children (usually used in the plural)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Synonyms:
pantie; panty; scanty; step-in
Hypernyms ("scanty" is a kind of...):
underpants (an undergarment that covers the body from the waist no further than to the thighs; usually worn next to the skin)
Domain usage:
plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)
| Declension: comparative and superlative |
Superlative: scantiest
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking in magnitude or quantity
Synonyms:
Context example:
a spare diet
Similar:
meager; meagerly; meagre; scrimpy; stingy (deficient in amount or quality or extent)
Derivation:
scantiness (the quality of being meager)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of clothing) revealing the body
Synonyms:
scanty; skimpy
Context example:
her dress was scanty and revealing
Similar:
revealing (showing or making known)
Context examples
Elinor, cried Marianne, is this fair? is this just? are my ideas so scanty?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The shambling figure, and the scanty great-coat, were not to be mistaken.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A medulloblastoma composed of malignant cells with hyperchromatic nucleus and scanty cytoplasm.
(Classic Medulloblastoma, NCI Thesaurus)
“So be it, then,” said Sir Simon Burley; and the rest of the council having approved, a scanty meal was hurriedly snatched, and the advance resumed under the cover of the darkness.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A few scanty grey hairs still hung about his yellow scalp.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our scanty possessions upon their backs.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
A small, faintly staining cell with scanty cytoplasm and rounded or polygonal contours.
(Chromophobe Cell, NCI Thesaurus)
She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Deviations from the normal process; e.g. delayed, difficult, profuse, scanty, unusual bleeding, etc.
(Irregular Menstruation, NCI Thesaurus)
| Learn English with... Proverbs |
"Fire with seasoned wood and work with flexible people are easy" (Breton proverb)
"Give the dough to baker even if he eats half of it." (Arabic proverb)
"Stretch your legs as far as your quilt goes." (Egyptian proverb)