Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use scanty in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective

Scanty means somewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent. Example: “Scanty and underproportioned returns of civility. — Collier.”

Examples of scanty by meaning

adjectiveSomewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent.

  • A girl dressed in scanty clothing
  • His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur.1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “The Sisters”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 16
  • How scanty are the records of great men in India!1921, Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, volume 1

More sentences with scanty

  • Scanty and underproportioned returns of civility. — Collier.From the entry underproportioned
  • Rainfall is scanty in Jochiang County on the fringe of the Takla Makan Desert in the south.1971 April 30, “Sinkiang's Small Hydroelectric Stations.”, in Peking Review, volume 14, number 18, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19…. From the entry Jochiang
  • He had scanty discouraged hair the color of tow, and a sickly, unpleasant breath.1944, Katherine Anne Porter, “The Leaning Tower”, in The Leaning Tower and Other Stories, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 173. From the entry sickly
  • The record of the third stage in Amos’ illumination is all too scanty.1923, W[illiam] Winslow Hall, “Amos”, in Hebrew Illumination: A Study in Essential Religion, London: The C[harles] W[illiam] Daniel Co.…. From the entry baldly
  • The scanty garments of fig-leaves with which our abashed first parents sought to conceal their nakedness.1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 5. From the entry abashed
  • If traditions of were-wolves are scanty in England, it is quite the reverse if we cross the water.2017, Sabine Baring-Gould -, The Book of Were-Wolves. From the entry were-wolf
  • At day 7, CECs appeared at the periphery and scanty cells existed at the midperiphery and center 7 days after injury.2015 September 18, “Recovery of Corneal Endothelial Cells from Periphery after Injury”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry midperiphery
  • Scanty irregular opacities are not uncommonly observed on the chest roentgenogram in the absence of interstitial fibrosis of the lungs.1992, Dick, J. A. et al., “The significance of irregular opacities on the chest roentgenogram”, in Chest, volume 102, number 1, →DOI…. From the entry opacity
  • According to Tu, two hundred years ago the nearby mountains furnished livelihood substitutes for the scanty farmland of Kuanmiao.1984 November 1, “Kuanmiao crafts comfort for the world”, in Taiwan Today, archived from the original on 11 Sep 2023. From the entry Chishan
  • The stony outcrops are often covered but thinly with arable soil; winters are bitingly cold, and rainfall scanty and unpredictable.1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 49. From the entry but
  • Still another subdivision of terricoles consists of species of high alpine habitats with scanty and very short vegetation.1966, Sir Boris Petrovich Uvarov, Grasshoppers and locusts: a handbook of general acridology, page 379. From the entry terricole
  • Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows.1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part V: “The Merchant Princes”, chapter 16, page 180. From the entry hangdog
  • Knyvett’s scanty resources, and soured by her laments!1920, Anthony Hope, Lucinda. From the entry ménage à trois
  • In the Penghu Islands, the fourth agricultural region, scanty rainfall, poor soils, and strong winds, limit agricultural production to sweet potatoes and peanuts.1966 December, “Taiwan”, in Alice Taylor, editor, Focus, volume 17, number 4, American Geographical Society, page 4. From the entry Penghu
  • I kept the fire burning charily, feeding it, bit by bit, the scanty furniture that Norton had made with axe and hammer.1923, Ted Olson, Weird Tales, The Conquering Will. From the entry charily
  • Not satisfied with tomahawking our colleagues in the country, they ask the scanty remnant in the House to join in the scalp dance.1906, FE Smith, maiden speech to House of Commons, 12 Mar 1906. From the entry tomahawk
  • Here in this dim and scanty undercraft is an epitome of the English art of four centuries, precious and beautiful beyond the power of words to describe.1905, Ralph Adams Cram, Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain. From the entry undercraft
  • There is scanty room for a railway, and in many places the rails are wetted by the spray from the Illecillewaet, which is the Indian word for a raging torrent.1941 December, G. H. Soole, “The Mountain Section of the C.P.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 530. From the entry wet

Meaning of scanty

  1. adjective Somewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent.
  2. adjective Sparing; niggardly; parsimonious; stingy.
  3. adjective Revealing.

Full definition of scanty

Questions about scanty in a sentence

How do you use scanty in a sentence?
Scanty is used as an adjective. For example: “Scanty and underproportioned returns of civility. — Collier.”
What is a short sentence with scanty?
“A girl dressed in scanty clothing”
What does scanty mean?
Scanty means somewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scanty (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use scanty in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/scanty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.