meagre

[vil]

Dear teachers,

Reading the John Galsworthy ‘s “Acme” I came up against a difficulty concerning a brief sentence with a polysemantic word namely “meagre”.

"The room had a very meagre look."

meager (a)
a meagre amount of food, money etc is too small and is much less than you need:
a meagre diet of bread and beans
meagre income/earnings/wages etc
He supplements his meager income by working on Saturdays.
a school with meagre resources

The adjective “meager” is polysemantic: when applied to a person it means “lean”, “thin”; to salary, food etc. “insufficient” “of poor quality”

"The room looked very poor and shabby."

Would you be kind enough to corroborate my speculation?

Thank you in advance for your efforts.

Regards.

V.

[Barb_D]

I think your "poor and shabby" meaning is dead-on!

[vil]

Hi Barb_D,

Thank you for your kindness.

Thanks ever so much for the cleverly usage of the new for me term "dead-on".

Regards.

V.