Make Your Point > Archived Issues > EXIGUOUS
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pronounce
EXIGUOUS:
Say it "egg ZIG you us."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
Remember when the Grinch leaves an exiguity of food in the house?
And then he reaches back to swipe even that last exiguous crumb?
"And the one speck of food that he left in the house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse."
You might never have seen the words exiguous and exiguity before, but now you know what they mean!
I first met these insanely scholarly words in Charles Harrington Elster's fantastic book Verbal Advantage. He lists exiguity as a close synonym of p___ity. They both mean "an amount of something that's way too small." Could you recall that p-word?
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
Our word "exiguous" came from the Latin exiguus, meaning "scanty, not enough."
(If you break exiguus apart into its Latin roots, it literally means "measured out." I'm a little puzzled about the leap in meaning there, but my best guess is that, if you had to measure something out exactly, you often had a shortage of it. Hence, in Latin, that's probably why "measured out" came to mean "scanty, not enough.")
Something exiguous is very scanty, very meager. In other words, it's too small, too few, or not enough.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Adjective: "their exiguous wages;" "This bikini isn't just scanty. It's exiguous."
Other forms:
The noun is "exiguity." (Say it "EGG zih GYOO ih tee.") Or, if you require a noun that's particularly ugly-looking, "exiguousness."
The adverb isn't recognized by all dictionaries. Feel free to use it anyway: "exiguously."
how to use it:
If you've ever frowned in frustration at how there's no adjective form of the noun "dearth" or "paucity," then frown no more, because "exiguous" is here. Hooray!
Call something exiguous when you need a rare, scholarly-sounding synonym of "scanty," "meager," "skimpy," "petty," or "inadequate."
You might talk about exiguous wages, budgets, and finances; exiguous bodies or body parts ("Bambi attempted to stand on his knobby, exiguous legs"); exiguous sounds or voices; exiguous gifts or gestures, etc. If someone apologizes by saying "I'm sorry you were offended"--instead of accepting the blame--that's an exiguous apology.
examples:
"Toward evening he dined exiguously on a dish of milk and porridge."
— W. J. Dawson, Masterman and Son, 1909
"Somewhat surprisingly, in I Spit On Your Grave, Jennifer doesn't actually get round to spitting on anyone's grave. It's a pity. Expectorating on an enemy's final resting place is exactly the kind of exiguous act of vengeance that a contemporary injured party might just be able to manage."
— David Cox, The Guardian, 24 January 2011
has this page helped you understand "exiguous"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "exiguous" without saying "not substantial enough" or "paltry."
try it out:
If you're as old as me, you remember the days of trying to fit your homework files onto a single floppy disk. The kind that that held an exiguous 1.44 MB.
And you'd try to name the files according to the exiguous 8-character limit. Hard! (Today, you can save your homework file as "History paper by Liesl Johnson for Mr. Smith's Period 4 class.docx." But back then it'd have to be "PaperLJ.wps.")
Talk about something exiguous from your own youth: something that today seems laughably limited, profoundly inadequate, or way too sparse.
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game this month is Perfectly Cromulent Words!
In each issue this month, match a scene from The Simpsons to the term that it calls to mind.
To see the answer, scroll to the bottom of the issue.
Try this one today:
Does the scene below suggest the word seismic, sagacious, or simpatico?
review this word:
A. AMPLE.
B. MODEST.
C. EXAGUOUS.
2. Thanks to our exiguous understanding of world geography, between the two of us, we score _____ Jeopardy dollars in the categories about capitals, rivers, and borders.
A. maybe a few hundred
B. most of the available
C. the maximum amount of
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Remember when the Grinch leaves an exiguity of food in the house?
Our word "exiguous" came from the Latin exiguus, meaning "scanty, not enough."
Part of speech:
If you've ever frowned in frustration at how there's no adjective form of the noun "dearth" or "paucity," then frown no more, because "exiguous" is here. Hooray!
"Toward evening he dined exiguously on a dish of milk and porridge."
Explain the meaning of "exiguous" without saying "not substantial enough" or "paltry."
If you're as old as me, you remember the days of trying to fit your homework files onto a single floppy disk. The kind that that held an exiguous 1.44 MB.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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