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Scant   Listen
adjective
Scant  adj.  (compar. scanter; superl. scantest)  
1.
Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; less than is wanted for the purpose; scanty; meager; not enough; as, 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."
2.
Sparing; parsimonious; chary. "Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence."
Synonyms: See under Scanty.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... and may mean the whole reserves at the station. The thing to do is to crack every fighting head that you see, before there are so many fighting heads that you cannot crack any of them. There is but scant account kept of cracked heads in back of the yards, for men who have to crack the heads of animals all day seem to get into the habit, and to practice on their friends, and even on their families, between times. This makes it ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... short distance up from the plateau there was stunted grass and moss, with dark points of rock protruding from the scant soil. Above that again was a breadth of dirty snow which, now that the sun was strong, sent little trickling streams down to the river. From there to the long ridge of the mountain extended upwards ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... image of hungry speculation, that cannot but fill the mind's eye because of certain famous Hamlets of our stage. Shakespeare himself foreshadowed a symbolic change, that shows a change in the whole temperament of the world, for though he called his Hamlet 'fat, and scant of breath,' he thrust between his fingers agile ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... to the capital two men galloped their tired horses in stern silence. For twelve hours they had ridden with scant waste of breath in speech. Only at each change, and seven times since break of day, had they changed horses. Prince Ughtred had lit a fresh cigar and asked the same question and met with ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... taught the boat-master how to build his boats so cunningly below the water-line—above the water-line he had had to use his native wits, and they were scant enough—must surely have been there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so that Elias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not be looked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... care not who may know it—I was kind, And for that our stout Queen did think foul scorn To kill the Spanish prisoners, and to guard So many could not, liefer being to rid Our country of them than to spite their own, I made him as I might that matter learn, Eking scant Latin with my daughter's wit, And told him men let forth and driven forth Did crowd our harbours for the ports of Spain, By one of whom, he, with good aid of mine, Should let his tidings go, and I plucked forth His ducats that a meet reward ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... February 28, 1890.—DEAR SIR: I fear that my recollections of Father Hecker will be of little service to you, for they are very scant. But the impression of the young man whom I knew at Brook Farm is still vivid. It must have been in the year 1843 that he came to the Farm in West Roxbury, near Boston. He was a youth of twenty-three, of German aspect, and I think his face was ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... twelve or fourteen hundred feet high. He thought of it as a hill, for he had lived long in the heart of the towering Andes. Behind him lay the belt of woodland that separated the basin from the open sea, a scant league away. The cleft through the hill lay almost directly ahead. It's walls apparently were perpendicular; a hundred feet or less from the pinnacle, the opening spread out considerably, indicating landslides at some remote ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... Sayce, Champollion, and other Egyptologists, the ancient Egyptians probably had a natural theogony long before they arrived at any idea of a double. In the beginning they treated the double or ghost with scant ceremony; it was only after many years that an element of worship entered into their treatment of the ghosts of their dead ancestors. They believed, at first, that the double dwelt forever in the tomb along with the ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... was hove to outside the bay, as if hesitating. Brigond was considering whether it were better, with his scant chart, to attempt the bay, or to take small boats and make for the shore. He remembered the reefs, but he did not know of the needle of rock. Presently he saw Gaspard's boat coming. "Someone who knows the bay," he said; "I see a hut on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... difficulties as well as the faults of Japan, and because I was now a little known as her well-wisher. One of the two books I published was translated as a labour of love, as I shall never forget, by a Japanese public man whose leisure was so scant that he sat up two nights to get his manuscript finished. Before long I had involved myself in the arduous task of founding and of editing for two years a monthly review, The New East (Shin Toyo),[7] with for motto a sentence of my own which ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... just this. The prince, as you know, goes about with scant attendance, and though there are guards in front of his house, there are but two or three beside himself who sleep there. There is a back entrance to which no attention is paid, and it will be easy for ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... old Mr. Ware's "stroke." Persis understood. For them there could be no thought of marrying nor giving in marriage while the old man lay helpless. All that Justin could spare from his scant earnings, little enough, she knew, must be sent home. And meanwhile Joel having discovered in a three months' illness his fitness to play the part of invalid, had apparently decided to make the role permanent. Like many another, Persis ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... of furtive observation by a young lady, seated with an elderly companion at a table somewhat removed. Furtive doings were in his line, and he made a close study of the party, never turning more than a scant half-face to do so. The manner of the young lady was puzzling. None so keen as Presidio in reading expression, but hers he could not understand. That she was not trying to flirt with him he decided promptly and definitively; yet her looks were intended to attract his attention, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... usually crammed with traps and firearms and trinkets to the water-line. The crews of forty, or seventy, or one hundred were relegated to vermin-infested hammocks above decks, with short rations of rye bread and salt fish, and such scant supply of fresh water that scurvy invariably ravaged the ship whenever foul weather lengthened the passage. Having equipped the vessel, the Siberian merchants passed over the management to the Cossacks, whose pretence of conquering new realms and collecting ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... 21st of November, 1673, the future duchess landed at Dover, where the duke awaited her, attended by a scant retinue. For the recent protestations, made in the House of Commons against the marriage, having the effect of scaring the courtiers, few of the nobility, and but one of the bishops, Dr. Crew of Oxford, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... the most illustrious and useful workers were so busily engaged in finding the causes of disease and the changes wrought in the various organs, in observing the noticeable symptoms and in classifying and diagnosticating them, that treatment was given but scant attention. This was nowhere more noticeable than in Germany, the birthplace, home, and world-center of scientific medicine, to which all the medical profession flocked. Patients became simply material which could be watched ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... mashed potatoes were handled by the shovelful; a barrel of flour was used every two and a half days in this camp of hungry hard-working men. It took a good man to plan and organize; and a good man Corrigan was. His meals were never late, never scant, and never wasteful. He had the record for all the camps on the river of thirty-five cents a day per man—and the men satisfied. Consequently, in his own domain he was autocrat. The dining room was sacred, the kitchen was sacred, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... family. Agrippa was a man of great ability and undoubted courage, but he lacked perseverance and was himself responsible for many of his misfortunes. In spite of his inquiring nature and his delight in novelty, he remained a Catholic, and had scant sympathy with the teaching of the reformers. His memory was nevertheless long defamed in the writings of the monks, who placed a malignant inscription over his grave. Agrippa's work, De occulta philosophia, was written about 1510, partly under the influence ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... not as leaders love to fall, In battle's forefront, loved and mourned by all; But fiercely fighting, as for his own hand, With the scant remnant of a broken band; His chieftainship, well-earned in many a fray, Rent from him—by himself! None did betray This sinister strong fighter to his foes; He fell by his own action, as he rose. He had fought all—himself ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various

... sight o' care, but I don't begrudge none o' the care I give to mine. I have to scant on flowers so 's to make room for pole beans," said Miss Pendexter gayly. She had only a tiny strip of land behind her house, but she always had something to give away, and made riches out of her narrow poverty. "A few flowers gives me just as much pleasure as more would," she added. "You ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... long ones to Philip, who had scant patience with the querulous old aunt. But Amanda, since she had glimpsed the girlhood romance of the woman, had a kindlier feeling for her and could smile at the faultfinding or at least run away from it without retort ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... had merely hinted at Olympian desire, whereat some rich Antiochenes, long privileged, had been ejected with scant ceremony from a small marble pavilion on an islet, formed by a branch of the River Ladon that had been guided twenty years ago by Hadrian's engineers in curves of exquisitely studied beauty. From between Corinthian columns was ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... preyed upon the weaker, and even the sick who were unable to defend themselves were robbed of their scanty supplies of food and clothing. Dark stories were afloat, of men, both sick and well, who were murdered at night, strangled to death by their comrades for scant supplies of clothing or money. I heard a sick and wounded Federal prisoner accuse his nurse, a fellow-prisoner of the United States Army, of having stealthily, during his sleep inoculated his wounded arm with ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... below him, on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed with dusk, save where ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... symptoms for what seemed to them to be the last time, everybody was conscious of a real anxiety. The future of the captain's widow was sadly uncertain, for every one was aware that Mrs. Lunn could now depend upon only a scant provision. She was much younger than her husband, having been a second wife, and she was thrifty and ingenious; but her outlook was acknowledged to be anything but cheerful. In truth, the honest grief that she displayed ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... system and the want of any systematic plan or unity running through the whole is due to many causes. As a nation, we are little inclined to system-making, and as a consequence the problem of education as a whole and in its total relation to the life and well-being of the State has received but scant attention from politicians. Educational questions, in this country, are rarely treated on their own merits and apart from considerations of a party, political, or denominational character, and hence the problems which have received attention in the past and evoke discussion ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... the wagons in the forenoon of the previous day with one day's rations, but in the charge across the river many of their haversacks had been filled with water, and the scant supply of food that remained in them destroyed. Others, more fortunate, had divided their few remaining crackers with their comrades who were thus deprived, so that all were now without provisions and ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... engine house, on across Sixth street, into the moonlight, then into the shadow, before I overtook it, when lo! it was a mortal woman, barefoot, in a dress which was probably a faded print. Most prints faded then, and this was white, long and scant, making a very ghostly robe, while on her head she carried a bundle tied up in a sheet. She had, of course, come out of Virgin alley, where many laundresses lived, and had just passed out of the shadow when I saw her. We exchanged salutations, and I went home to lie ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... fly before a human creature in the summer season. Howbeit, I forbade her to dig for amber. For as it now lay deep, and we knew not what to do with the earth we threw up, I resolved to tempt the Lord no further, but to wait till my store of money grew very scant before ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... Irish "jarveys," is going the rounds in Dublin. Mr. —— is a man of aldermanic proportions. He chartered an outside car, t'other day, at Island Bridge Barrack, and drove to the post-office. On arriving he tendered the driver sixpence, which was strictly the fare, though but scant remuneration for the distance. The jarvey saw at a glance the small coin, but in place of taking the money which Mr. ——held in his hands, he busied himself putting up the steps of the vehicle, and then, going to the well at the back of the car, took thence a piece ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... which is a manifest or expression of something superior cannot be identified with the superior something. I am not the words which I write, although they manifest me and could not exist without me. Every object in Nature is precisely what it is as a manifest of Reality. There is scant freedom in the natural world apart from man. Nothing in Nature could be other than it is. Man, on the other hand, is a manifest of Infinite and Eternal Reality in the sense that he has a body, and must ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock

... was learned; with the notable exception of M. Emanuel, who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite inscrutable to me, had obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee over their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about this penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose style or sentiment the writer's individual ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the old college friend of his who read the service over him—a shabby, black, bent old ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... delight in stories, but are generally ashamed to show a literary interest in fiction. Hence the world's most delightful story book has come to us with but scant indications of its origin. Critical scholarship, however, has been able to reach fairly ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... suns," said he, "were but some matter of optical philosophy, which could readily be expounded of such as were learned in it; and for the men in armour, when he saw them he would believe them." Dr Thorpe considered the wonderful sights omens of coming ill, but from Esther they won very scant respect. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... heavy-laden brings his beverage home, Far-fetched and little worth: nor seldom waits Dependent on the baker's punctual call, To hear his creaking panniers at the door, Angry and sad and his last crust consumed. So farewell envy of the PEASANT'S NEST. If solitude make scant the means of life, Society for me! Thou seeming sweet, Be still a pleasing object in my view, My visit still, but never ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... stream, to wet Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.' ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... said Richard quickly, fearful that Jack's scant supply of patience would be utterly exhausted. "Besides, there was a breeze in the afternoon. It wasn't a bad day at all, ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... relieved on the point that mainly concerned them, could not see much gravity in the rest of the concoction, and Walcott had scant pity from them. He went home disconsolate, little dreaming of the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... heard that Nun Albaros Botello has had good results in two battles in East India with the Dutch, over Ormus; and that he expected the recovery of those forts. However, I doubt it, because of the scant obedience of the Portuguese to the officers who commanded them in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... she of course had no pursuits in common; he treated her with harshness, and as much as possible she avoided him. Even Mrs. Kinlay seemed to regard her with very scant affection, and as the girl grew in years her position at the farm became that of a servant rather than of a daughter. As for Carver Kinlay himself, he seldom spoke a gentle word to body or beast, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... also looked and laughed to me. My lowly neighbour thought the smile God-sent, And singing, through the toilsome hours she went. O! weary singer, I have learned the wrong Of taking gifts, and giving naught of song; I thought my blessings scant, my mercies few, Till I contrasted them with yours, and you; To-day I counted much, yet wished it more— While but a child's bright smile ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... sincerity has been preserved. "Amours" seems to be the first one of a series of plays dealing with the reverse of the gay picture presented in "Anatol." A young man is having a love affair with two women at the same time, one of them married, the other one a young girl with scant knowledge of the world. Yet she knows enough to know what she is doing, and she has sufficient strength of mind to rise above a sense of guilt, though she is more prone to be the victim of fear. Then the married woman's ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... were still molested, and no hope remained of any purchase to be had in this place any longer; because we were now so notably made known in those parts, and because our victuals grew scant: as soon as the weather waxed somewhat better (the wind continuing always westerly, so that we could not return to our ships) our Captain thought best to go (3rd November) to the Eastward, towards Rio Grande [Magdalena] long the coast, where we had been ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... faded away it began to rain. The next morning the water was coming down in torrents. Richling, looking out from a door in Prieur street, found scant room for one foot on the inner edge of the sidewalk; all the rest was under water. By noon the sidewalks were completely covered in miles of streets. By two in the afternoon the flood was coming into many of the houses. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... helpless behind their coverts. The merest uplifting of a head, the slightest movement of a hand, was sufficient to demonstrate how sharp were those savage eyes. No white man in the short half-circle dared to waste a single shot now; all realized that their stock of ammunition was becoming fearfully scant, yet those scheming devils continually baited them to draw ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... had come the crowning glory, the climax of their wonderful summer—the race! They felt again the straining of that moment when, with half a length to make up and scant twenty yards from the goal, she had led them in the glorious, madcap dash to victory! From that day on she had reigned supreme in the girls' warm hearts, and there was not one of them but felt "that nothing ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... in the hardy north a land there lies, Buried in thick-ribb'd ice and constant snows, Where scant the days and clouded are the skies, And seldom the bright sun his glad warmth throws; There, enemy of peace by nature, springs A people to whom death no terror brings; If these, with new devotedness, we see In Gothic fury baring the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... Scant feet from ground surface, the sportster pilot flicked his pitch control and pulled his throttle out for the brief burst of power which would allow him to drop ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

... . Methinkes no mirth is scant, Where no reioysing of minstrelcie doth want: The bagpipe or fidle to vs ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... expect a girl to be content with a few scant blossoms when she had lived all her early age in the midst of prodigal plenty! In spring the fields had been white with snowdrops. Sylvia sent over small packing-cases every February, filled with hundreds and hundreds of little tight bunches of the ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... the kirk May think of their syde taillis irk;[150] For when the weather been maist fair, The dust flies highest in the air, And all their faces does begarie. Gif they could speak, they wald them warie...[151] But I have maist into despite Poor claggocks[152] clad in raploch-white, Whilk has scant twa merks for their fees, Will have twa ells beneath their knees. Kittock that cleckit[153] was yestreen, The morn, will counterfeit the queen: And Moorland Meg, that milked the yowes, Claggit with clay aboon the hows,[154] In barn nor byre she will not ...
— English Satires • Various

... be well in advance of his comrade, he decided to await his coming. At the same time he sent one of his escort into Enramada to discover if Lieutenant Navarro had by any chance reached that place, and to arrange for fresh mounts. Then he threw himself down in the scant shadow of a ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... before scant audiences in country theaters in England, Ireland, and Scotland, always played as if he were before the most brilliant audiences in the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of the Tower and enter into the city, and so to slay all these unhappy people, while they were at their rest and asleep; for it was thought that many of them were drunken, whereby they should be slain like flies; also of twenty of them there was scant one in harness. And surely the good men of London might well have done this at their ease, for they had in their houses secretly their friends and servants ready in harness, and also sir Robert Knolles ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... Well, to this we must all come, sooner or later; and he is happiest, let his skin be what color it may, who is best fitted to meet it. Here lies the body of no doubt a brave warrior, and the soul is already flying towards its heaven or hell, whether that be a happy hunting ground, a place scant of game, regions of glory, according to Moravian doctrine, or flames of fire! So it happens, too, as regards other matters! Here have old Hutter and Hurry Harry got themselves into difficulty, if they haven't got themselves into torment ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... Brasil, on the one side (hauing in it fiue and twentie peeces of Ordinance) and a fort on the other side wherein were 13 or 14 great brasse pieces. Besides, when we came neere land the winde prooued too scant for vs to attempt any ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... Life was scant at Samarra, as poor as it had been abundant at Sannaiyat. The crested larks were of a new species. Owls nested in the old wells; and most units were presently owning their owlets or kestrels or speckled kingfishers, miserable-looking birds. Sandgrouse were few, but commoner towards the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... veteran he was. Afterwards he brought in Josephine, and E. W. B. Childers (rather deeply lined in the jaws by daylight), and the Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in a word, all the company. Amazing creatures they were in Louisa's eyes, so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative of leg; but it was very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy, and very natural in Sissy to be ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... that is to say clere, darke plentuous or scant, whiche is to understande quadri-partite, cest a dire clere, obscure habondante et rare, ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... monsoon; cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast monsoon, December ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... robbed, my retainers dismissed, save only thee, my poor faithful Anne; and in return I am to wed him to boot! Nay! Rather will I take the veil and give all my goods to the convent of St. Agatha at Torton; though thou knowest I have scant mind to ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... the French Academy honorably mentioned Victor's "Odes on the Advantages of Study," with a misgiving that some elder hand was masked under the line ascribing "scant fifteen years" to the author. At the Toulouse Floral Games he won prizes two years successively. His critical judgment was sound as well, for he had ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... County, a small town Built near the Sound, but of a scant renown, That always to its biggest size did run At summer-time, beneath a blazing sun, But rested as a town, as if to say, "I'll pay no further taxes, come what may;"— The ancient cobbler, JOHN, unknown to fame (So many cobblers ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various

... mattered not a mite that her hair was lustreless, her eyes steel coloured, and her nose like that of a woman he never had seen. In her way, Polly admired her mother, loved her, and worked until she was almost dropping for Kate's scant, infrequent words of praise. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... who are needed; for the past year came eighty-odd soldiers, and this year ninety. That is but a scant number for the many men who die here, for our forces are steadily diminishing. I can do no more, for money has not been coined here, nor do the people multiply. I ask, Sire, for what is needed to fulfil my obligations. The viceroy does not send the orders which are given him ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... now ye beg that I give o'er: ye say the scant supply Of water fails in lowland vales, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... who first sighted us. He sounded the cry of our arrival, and came skurrying like a sandpiper, his scant gown tripping ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... not go further in her confessions, nor explain more lucidly why she had scant affection for Mait-land of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... ship-building a thing of the past, Blackpool Dock had ceased to be of commercial importance. No more ships were built there, and fewer ships put in to be overhauled and painted; while even these were for the most part of a class viewed at Lloyd's with scant favour, which seemed, like the yard itself, to have fallen somewhat behind the day. The original Rainham had not bequeathed his energy along with his hoards to his descendants; and, indeed, the last of these, Philip Rainham, a man of weak health, original ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... transgress. All gifts of mere generosity were beyond his power, and, consequently, in a short time beyond his wish; but to the cry of want and wretchedness his hand and heart were ever open. Often has he given away to a starving child in the street that pittance which was to purchase his own scant meal; and he never felt such neglect of himself a privation. To have turned his eyes and ears from the little mendicant would have been the hardest struggle; and the remembrance of such inhumanity would have haunted ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... they be to concede away the political rights of their race, or to soothe the consciences of white men by suggesting that the problem is insoluble except by some slow remedial process which will become effectual only in the distant future, are received with scant respect—could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise received, without a voting constituency to back them up,—and must be cautiously made, lest they meet an actively hostile reception. But there are many colored men at the North, where their civil ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... greatly mistaken. You must make him love you, Jack. It can be done with any wild creature. Be gentle, but firm. Teach him to obey the slightest touch of rein, to stand when you throw your bridle on the ground, to come at your whistle. Always remember this. He's a desert-bred horse; he can live on scant browse and little water. Never break him of those best virtues in a horse. Never feed him grain if you can find a little patch of browse; never give him a drink till he needs it. That's one-tenth as often as a tame horse. Some day ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... further back than the time of which she spoke. At twenty-six years old I was an idle young man of good family, but scant expectations, supposed to be studying at the Bar, but in reality idling my time about town. In those days, Lady Caroom, you ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... room where mother and daughter sat was flung wide open with scant ceremony, and to the accompaniment of a boisterous laugh. Into the room swaggered a tall, fine-looking young man of some three-and-twenty summers, dressed in all the extravagance of a lavish and extravagant age. Upon his head he wore an immense peruke of ringlets, ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of the room did not displease her; it seemed to her more natural to sleep in a low, narrow bed like his, than in fine linen and eiderdown quilts, and she liked the scant, bleak furniture, the two chairs, the iron wash-hand stand, and the window curtained with a bit of Indian muslin. They stood talking, hardly knowing what they were saying. Her eyes embarrassed him, and she stopped in ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... of the foreign historians and travellers and the recorded traditions from native sources have been treated with scant courtesy whenever they cannot be explained according to the views of each particular inquirer into the period to which they refer. They have been alternatively the subject of dispute or neglect by students ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... of Magnitude, his properties, conditions, and appertenances: commonly, now is, and from the beginnyng, hath of all Philosophers, ben called Geometrie. But, veryly, with a name to base and scant, for a Science of such dignitie and amplenes. And, perchaunce, that name, by common and secret consent, of all wisemen, hitherto hath ben suffred to remayne: that it might carry with it a perpetuall memorye, of the first and notablest ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee

... We dined off his dust for a league— It really was very poor fun— Till, our car showed symptoms of heat and fatigue, Reggie had to admit he was done. To my soft consolation scant heed did he pay, But with taps was continually juggling, And his words, "Will you keep your dress further away?" Put a ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton

... tumble over the other. So forward, whatever it may cost. We are close on their heels. Halt! Halt! That accursed stinging smoke! Wait, you dogs! As soon as the pathway widens, we'll run you down with scant ceremony, and may the gods deprive me of a day of life for each one I spare! Another torch out! One can't see one's hand before one's face! At a time like this a beggar's crutch would be better ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was one located in the central part of the State of Pennsylvania. It was perhaps a mile wide and more than that long, and surrounded by mountains and long ranges of hills. At the lower end of the lake was a small settlement of scant importance and at the upper end, where there was a stream of no mean size, was the town of Riverside. At Riverside were situated several summer hotels and boarding houses, and also the elegant mansion in which Ned Talmadge resided, with his ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... been reduced to the minimum allowed by law. It is very small for the size of the Nation, and most certainly should be kept at the highest point of efficiency. The senior officers are given scant chance under ordinary conditions to exercise commands commensurate with their rank, under circumstances which would fit them to do their duty in time of actual war. A system of maneuvering our Army in bodies of some ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... was early on hand and busily bidding for votes. He had felt so confident of the office in advance of muster-day, that he had rummaged through several country tailor-shops and got a new suit of the nearest approach to a captain's uniform that their scant stock could furnish. So there he was, arrayed in jaunty cap, and a swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons. He even wore fine boots, and moreover had them blacked—which was almost a crime among a country crowd of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... all were merely lads; not one was able To earn the crust of bread, Though scant it might be, coarse and black and humble, With which he must ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... in youth, these dark-skinned, passionate daughters of the sunny Pacific shore soon begin to fade. Although their scant costume and the manto y saya—the dress favored at night—serve only to expose and display the charming contour of their youthful form, as the years roll on and rob them of these alluring attractions, the simple array becomes ugly and ridiculous. ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... his little hat, With such a narrow brim; They laugh'd to note his dapper coat, With skirts so scant and trim. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various

... diminution of the hail; it lay a foot deep in pieces the size of marbles or of small apples, and the autumnal grasses and bushes of juniper and sumach were beaten flat with the rocky ground from which they derived scant sustenance. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... here," holding out her hand. "One makes acquaintance so much more quickly out of doors. I must begin ours by asking for your arm, Miss Swendon. I am fat and scant o' breath, and apt to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... was curiously built. It consisted of two storeys, and formed a main building and one wing, which gave it a peculiarly lop-sided appearance that reminded me somewhat ludicrously of Chanticleer, with a solitary, scant, and clipped appendage. ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... think that this girl would willingly sacrifice me to save the French gallant from injury, and an anxiety to escape her presence before I should speak words I might always regret caused me to leave with scant ceremony. Yet I was none too soon; for scarce had I stepped without the door when I met Lieutenant ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... perverter of conduct, the polluter of mental purity, the corrupter-general of society. Amongst savages and barbarians the comparatively unrestrained intercourse between men and women relieves the brain through the body; the mind and memory have scant reason, physical or mental, to dwell fondly upon visions amatory and venereal, to live in a "rustle of (imaginary) copulation." On the other hand the utterly artificial life of civilization, which debauches even the monkeys in "the Zoo," and which expands the period ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... which led to the village of Tridon. A diligence was coming down that street escorted by a dozen Chouans; two on either side of the postilion, ten others guarding the doors. The carriage stopped in the middle of the market-square. All were so intent upon the diligence that they paid but scant attention to Cadoudal. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... I sold her the goose, and got my money— here it is; but this is another kind of game, and while we're eating, I'll tell you the whole story," which he at once proceeded to do, for, hungry as they were, they all fell to with scant ceremony. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... the house appeared, and with them Tom Southam, Jack's roommate at college. Jack had the same merry blue eyes and sunny smile as his sister, and Judith forgot to be shy with him. Thomas was a cheery youth, whose chief interest at the dinner-table was the food, and Judith gave him scant attention. But Tim, the elder brother, who had been in the Flying Corps and had several enemy machines to his credit, who still limped from injuries received during an air-fight, and whose grey eyes had the keen, piercing, and yet dreamy look of the genuine bird-man, was sufficiently a hero to ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... they asked the cause of his sickness and she answered, "The reason was our severance from him and our leaving him desolate; for these days we have been absent from him were longer to him than a thousand years and scant blame to him, seeing he is a stranger, and solitary and we left him alone, with none to company with him or hearten his heart; more by token that he is but a youth and may be he called to mind his family and his mother, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... very great difficulty in procuring men enough to adequately man our ships of war, and there was therefore no alternative left to the government but to resort to the process of impressment, a process which naval officers were too often apt to adopt with scant discrimination. In their anxiety to secure a full complement for their ships they deemed themselves justified not only in pressing men ashore, but even in boarding the merchantmen of their own nation upon the high seas and impressing so many ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... the suggestive bulk of the coiled snake lying on the path, with scant room on either side for them to pass—oozy depths of the swamp on one side and an angry ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... Claudet, there was a joyous hurrah of welcome. Justice Destourbet exchanged a ceremonious hand-shake with the new proprietor of the chateau. The scant costume and tight gaiters of the huntsman's attire, displayed more than ever the height and slimness of the country magistrate. By his side, the registrar Seurrot, his legs encased in blue linen spatterdashes, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... much a "necessary of life" as the ability to walk or talk, but also and more especially because it devolves upon the school to do for the citizen in his childhood what life will not do for him in his manhood, or will do for him but in scant measure, to stimulate his vital powers into healthful activity, to foster the growth of his soul. And the more the people in a civilised country are withdrawn from the soil and herded into mines and mills and offices, the more imperative is it that the school ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... Seas by many a Greekish hold, Till he arrived at the Christian host; A noble flight, adventurous, brave, and bold, Whereon a valiant prince might justly boast, Three years he served in field, when scant begin Few golden hairs to deck his ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... aspects, will give us small chance for censuring her scant attractions. A field of grass and flowers, sunshine and chirping birds, the clinging, changing foliage, or the shimmer of snow and ice, the light of moon and stars, are in some of her commonest pictures. We are simply to give heed. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... at the first glance that I had seen him before,—a tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the shoulders, and scant gray hair worn somewhat long upon the collar. He carried a light water-proof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat. This done, he felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make certain ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... which mathematical knowledge is of value or for magisterial functions. The misfortunes of our family caused him to follow a different career, and he underwent many hardships with unshaken courage. He never complained of his lot, though life had scant enjoyment save that which is derived from love of home. These joys are, however, unquestionably ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... de Torres was absent from Hispaniola, laying these propositions before Los Reyes, Columbus was busy about the affairs of the colony, which were in a most distracted state. Scant fare and hard work were having their effect; sickness pervaded the whole armament; and men of all ranks and stations, hidalgoes, people of the court and ecclesiastics, were obliged to labour manually under regulations ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... company with his father, who was also a scientist of some reputation, the theorem went by the name of 'la Pascalia,' and Descartes's remarks do not seem to have been taken seriously, which indeed is not to be wondered at, seeing that he was in the habit of giving scant credit to the work of other ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman

... What tel ||ye me of Paule, Paule is Paule and I am I. Cannius. Do you gladly helpe to releue the poore and the indygent with your goodes? Poli. Howe can I helpe them whiche haue nothynge to gyue them, and scant inoughe for my selfe. Cannius. ye myght spare somthynge to helpe the with yf thou woldest playe the good husband in lyuynge more warely, in moderatynge thy superfluous expenses, and in fallynge to thy worke lustely. Poliphemus. ...
— Two Dyaloges (c. 1549) • Desiderius Erasmus

... slow hours. When they were not dozing they were either nibbling frugally the scant fare in reach or conversing by short snatches at ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... This race-type keeping, They saw men creeping Over the ridges, scant fodder reaping. They saw men eager Toil on the sea, though their take was meager, Plow the steep slope and trench the bog-valley, To bouts with the rock the brown nag rally. Saw their faults flaunted,— Buck-like they bicker, Love well their liquor,— But ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... the alien thought of killing and the joy it had experienced as the cat died scant moments before, was replaced by another thought. A thought ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw

... the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind (Still the phrase is wide or scant), To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... may not come to see his mother for an old familiar talk, because his wife either comes with him, or expects him to be at home. He has no time for his mother's interests or his mother's friends; there is scant welcome in his home for her, because between them has come an alien presence which never ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... we reached a cache of cod heads, and stopped while the dogs were fed one each. Poor brutes! they had had nothing to eat since Friday night—this was Monday—and I imagine a rather scant meal even then; for at this time of the year the stock of salt seal meat and fat and dried cod heads and caplin that the natives put up in the summer and fall for dog food is nearly exhausted, and what ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... know who had ever heard of Thoreau, Mr. Barney Mullins, of Freedom Centre, Outagamie County, Wisconsin, was a most ardent admirer of Thoreau, while the most eminent critic in America, James Russell Lowell, does him scant justice. To Lowell, the finest thoughts of Thoreau are but strawberries from Emerson's garden, and other critics have followed back these same strawberries through Emerson's to still older gardens, among them to that of Sir ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... little doubtfully, but evidently impressed with the early hours I kept told me that I might try. He waved me to a desk, bidding me wait until he had made out his morning book of assignments; and with such scant ceremony was I finally introduced to Newspaper Row, that had been to me like an enchanted land. After twenty-seven years of hard work in it, during which I have been behind the scenes of most of the plays that go to make up the sum of the life of the metropolis, it exercises the old spell ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... out what a vote actually meant. It must be recalled that I was only twenty-one years old, with scant education, and with no civic agency offering me the information I was seeking. I went to the headquarters of each of the political parties and put my query. I was ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal, Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel, And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly now As the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land. There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand, There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes, And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise, And ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... long as thou hast said No and will stick to No, all is well; but I like not this man Allerton; he is too shrewd a trader for a simple gentleman to cope with. He sold me corn and gave scant measure, and I told him of it too. He likes me not better ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... the young church lay in the Babel confusion of races and languages among its disciples, and in the lack of public resources, which could be supplied no otherwise than by free gift. Yet another difficulty was the scant supply of clergy; but events which about this time began to spread desolation among the institutions of Catholic Europe proved to be of inestimable benefit to the ill-provided Catholics of America. Rome might almost have been content to see ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon



Words linked to "Scant" :   provide, work, render, insufficient, furnish, restrict



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