scantyadj.n.

1658 J. Harrington Prerogative Pop. Govt. ii. v. 81 Clemens saith they were very few, their Assemblies private, and very scanty things.

1668 N. Culpeper & A. Cole tr. T. Bartholin Anat. (new ed.) Man. iii. i. 323 More plentiful or scanty influx of the Spirit.

1690 J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding iii. v. 204 The terms of our Law..will hardly find Words that answer them in the Spanish, or Italian, no scanty Languages.

1791 W. Cowper tr. Homer Iliad in Iliad & Odyssey I. xix. 259 Me, in no scanty measure, thou excell'st.

1836 Ld. St. Helens in Croker Papers 2 Nov. (1884) II [The] King..used to dispatch his solitary and scanty meal in a very short time.

1838 E. Bulwer-Lytton Alice I. iii. i. 223 Proud aristocrats began to recollect that a mushroom peerage was supported but by a scanty fortune.

1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt I. i. 23 Since her early gladness in this best-loved boy, the harvests of her life had been scanty.

1907 A. Lang Hist. Scotl. IV. xviii. 465 Congregations were scanty.

1701 G. Stanhope tr. St. Augustine Pious Breathings 115 They proportion their regard to Him according to their own scanty notions of His goodness toward them.

1709 R. Steele Tatler No. 128. ⁋4 You appear to my Imagination more agreeable in a short scanty Petticoat, than the finest woman of Quality in her spreading fardingal.

a1721 J. Sheffield Wks. (1753) I. 264 This scanty road bears us not both together; And we must once divide, to part no more.

1725 I. Watts Logick i. vi. §9 Our Minds are narrow and scanty in their Capacities.

1873 W. H. Dixon Hist. Two Queens I. iii. iii. 129 They sailed from Harfleur in the scantiest craft that ever ventured for a crown.

1874 G. J. Whyte-Melville Uncle John II. xiv. 95 Scanty trousers..and a forward set of the hat.

1674 J. Josselyn Acct. Two Voy. 196 The wind was scanty all along.

1706 W. Penn in Mem. Hist. Soc. Pennsylvania (1872) X. 107 My paper is scanty and time more so.

1732 G. Berkeley Alciphron II. vi. xxx. 113 If our scanty Experience were made the rule and measure of Truth.

1770 O. Goldsmith Deserted Village 304 He drives his flocks to pick the scanty blade.

1801 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 5 409 Breath very short, urine scanty.

1804 Naval Chron. 11 80 Wind scanty, but fair.

1839 G. P. R. James Louis XIV I. 211 Forage and provisions beginning to grow scanty, and the winter approaching.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. (init.) Such a description, composed from scanty and dispersed materials, must necessarily be very imperfect.

1871 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest (1876) IV. xviii. 173 With regard to Worcestershire our knowledge is in one way still scantier, while in another it is much fuller.

1884 Manch. Examiner 20 May 5/2 He pegged away, however, with his scanty dollars until he came into alliance with Jay Gould.

1692 J. Dryden Eleonora 7 She..Ascrib'd above their due to ev'ry one, Unjust and scanty to her self alone.

1794 E. Burke in W. Burke & E. Burke tr. J. P. Brissot To his Constituents ⁋21 He allows a space of time for the duration of these agitations: and least he should be thought rigid and too scanty in his measure, he thinks it may be long.

1797 S. T. Coleridge Ode Departing Year (new ed.) in Poems (ed. 2) 16 With..daily toil Soliciting for food my scanty soil.

1928 J. P. McEvoy Show Girl (title page) The hottest little wench that ever shook a scanty at a tired business man.

1929 M. Lief Hangover 269 There's no law in New Jersey forcing a husband to look at his wife's scanties, is there?

1934 Thorne Smith Bishop's Jaegers 5 Whereas men..still struggle along with the old-fashioned..name of drawers..women have far outstripped them. Theirs must be known now by such frivolous..appellations as panties, scanties.. step-ins..and other similar..terms.

1944 E. Carr House of All Sorts 101 A puff of wind from the open door caught and ballooned the scanties.

1951 M. Dickens My Turn to make Tea iv. 73 No don't go, dear. You've seen me in my scanties, anyway.

1959 ‘O. Mills’ Stairway to Murder vii. 75 ‘Now you've got some midnight-blue scanties.’ He held up Charles's underpants apologetically.

1964 J. Hale Grudge Fight i. i. 22 Bennet, who always looks after number one, is wearing Scapa scanties next to the skin. Long underpants and a long-sleeved vest made of thick, oily wool.

1977 Time 24 Jan. 46/1 Maddie's blue scanties emerge from the M.P.s' briefcases at inauspicious moments and whip through the air like naval pennants.