scant
Part of speech: adj
verb
det
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
construction
cooking
food
lifestyle
manufacturing
masonry
Etymology: Adjective and determiner from Middle English scant, from Old Norse skamt, neuter of skammr (“short”), from Proto-Germanic *skammaz (“short”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱem- (“mutilated, hornless”). Verb from Middle English scanten, from the adjective. Noun and adverb from Middle English scant, from the adjective.
Inflected forms:
form: scanter
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: scantest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: scants
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: scanting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: scanted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: scanted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: scants
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; scanty; meager.
pos: adj
examples: a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment
His sermon was scant, in all, a quarter of an hour.
Another major defect of the current literature dealing with the nomenclature of hybrid forms of English is the scant attention paid to the question of frequency.
The mainstream media hones in on bad news stories where UK railways are concerned, yet gives scant attention to the many items of good news emerging from the network.
gloss: Sparing; parsimonious; chary.
pos: adj
examples: Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.
gloss: Slightly diminished; just short of the amount described.
pos: adj
examples: a scant cup of sugar
gloss: To limit in amount or share; to stint.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to scant someone in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries
Scant not my cups.
where man hath a great living laid together and where he is scanted
I am scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on your actions.
gloss: To fail, or become less; to scantle.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The wind scants.
gloss: Very little, very few.
pos: det
examples: After his previous escapades, Mary had scant reason to believe John.
(as pronoun) The failure of this project has scant to do with me.
The summer I answered my first personals, I was a 19-year-old dyke living alone in a three-room bachelorette pad, scant blocks from Main Street, Waltham, Massachusetts.
[Minnesota Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all.
gloss: A small piece or quantity.
pos: noun
examples: A blonde appeared from the officers' room, wearing a scant of material that passed for issued undergarments.
gloss: Scarcity; lack.
pos: noun
tags: uncommon
examples: As soon as the corpse was placed on the pile, and some prayers muttered by the attendant Bramin, fire was set to it at one of the corners, and the wood being dry, and in great quantity, it soon blazed up and consumed the body to ashes, without any noisome smell, such as however does not unfrequently happen if there is a scant of wood, or rain intervenes to damp it.
I was greatly surprised, however, in this very fertile and abundant country, to find so great a scant of provisions in the inns.
Even if labour were diverted to a great extent from our grand staple, the cotton manufacture, we are not prepared to admit that the country would be worse off. The worst that could happen in such a case would be, that for a few years, during the inordinate progress of railways, our population would run short of shirts and shifts. If the woollen manufacture be the theme, there would be a scant of coats and petticoats; or if the earthenware manufacture, there must be fewer teapots and pipkins.
gloss: A block of stone sawn on two sides down to the bed level.
pos: noun
gloss: A sheet of stone.
pos: noun
gloss: A slightly thinner measurement of a standard wood size.
pos: noun
Antonyms: ample
plenty
Derived words: scantily
scantly
scantness
scanty
scants
Translations: