Word.ws English Dictionary

slim pickings

slim pickings noun: a small amount, especially of money; paucity.

Noun

slim pickings pl (plural only)

  1. (colloquial, plural, plural-only) A small amount, especially of money; paucity.
    • After the factory closed, it's slim pickings for work in this town.
    • ... they were among the citizens of the Great Republic who got shut into Paris during the siege, and had reason to complain of "the slim pickings" even their dollars commanded during that tragic episode of our neighbours' history.1876, The Gentleman's Magazine, July to December issue, pg. 208

Examples of slim pickings in a sentence

  • Only at one season during the year does the average Haitian get more than these slim pickings; that is in mango-time, and then the roads and trails are carpeted with the yellow pits.1920, Harry Alverson Franck, Roaming Through the West Indies, The Century Co., page 153:
  • But in a year of slim pickings in the super-coach business -- Cowher and Carroll preferred to wait another day -- there was not much left to choose from.2008, Mike Wise, The Washington Post, "Redskins Looked Below the Radar," February 10, 2008...

Questions about slim pickings

What does slim pickings mean?
Slim pickings means a small amount, especially of money; paucity.
How do you use slim pickings in a sentence?
Only at one season during the year does the average Haitian get more than these slim pickings; that is in mango-time, and then the roads and trails are carpeted with the yellow pits.
What part of speech is slim pickings?
Slim pickings is a noun.

Words near slim pickings in the dictionary

  1. slim client
  2. slim clients
  3. slim down
  4. slim jim
  5. slim jims
  6. slim pickings
  7. Slim River
  8. slim-fit
  9. slim-thick
  10. Slimane
  11. Slimbridge

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slim pickings (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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