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adverb
Scant  adv.  In a scant manner; with difficulty; scarcely; hardly. (Obs.) "So weak that he was scant able to go down the stairs."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... authentic or a satisfactory likeness of the poet; and Ben Jonson close by, with his strong features and manly face. And Fletcher, and Shirley, and Dick Burbadge, who first acted Hamlet, and whose picture explains why the queen should say, "He's fat and scant of breath,"—and others of the same great band of contemporaries. Their heads belong for the most part to one broad type; their common characteristics are strongly marked. There were never finer heads than these;—the broad, uplifted, solidly based skulls; the strong and vigorous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... than a year, she had been obliged to spend nearly five fatiguing hours in being finished as a Queen. How strange it all seems to us American Republicans, who make and unmake our rulers with such expedition and scant ceremony. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... without pay. They did not look much like soldiers on parade, but were among the bravest and best fighters of the Revolution. Their swords were beaten out of old mill-saws at the country forge, and their bullets were made largely from pewter mugs and other pewter utensils. Their rations were very scant and simple. Marion, their leader, as a rule, ate hominy and potatoes and drank water flavored with a ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... pursuing its leisurely and monotonous way. Upon the edges of the dry stream-beds, or arroyos, which descend from the hills and lose themselves in wide alluvial fans upon the sandy waste, a fringe of scant vegetation appears, nourished by the water which flows down ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... of the faculty. In return for this assistance, Sanderson had lent him large sums of money, which the owner entertained no hopes of recovering. Sanderson tried to balance matters by treating Langdon with scant ceremony when they ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... at least. As a result the work with the Gulf tribes is still far from complete. The tribes living on or near the upper waters of the Agusan river and north of Compostela were not visited, and, hence, will not be mentioned here, while certain other divisions received only scant attention. No attempt is here made to treat of the Christianized or Mohammedanized people, who inhabit a considerable part of the coast and the Samal Islands, further than to indicate their influence ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... pile of newspapers in my room, and asked me how I could read those dreary accounts of battles and bombardments. Beyond these poor newspapers I had, during the sixteen months that I was at home, but scant tidings from without. I had implored Clara Steinmann to write me now and then, and tell me the news of Elberthal, but her penmanship was of the most modest and retiring description, and she was, too, so desperately excited about Karl as to be ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... for a last, heartbreaking burst of speed and the dun made good. At the beginning of the slope to the ridge, Rathburn veered sharply to the right and burst through the trees a scant rod or two from his man. His gun was leveled straight at the other, who had been caught momentarily ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... boarding with the Godfrey's and trouble with the Indians was always feared by the new arrivals. One night we heard a terrible hullabaloo and Mrs. Godfrey called, "For the Lord's sake come down, the Indians are here." All the boarders dashed out in scant costume, crying, "The Indians are upon us," but it turned out to be only the first charivari in St. Anthony given to Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Parker. Mrs. Lucien Parker ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... friends in San Francisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly cherished his experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was too practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it. In her absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured up no disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In his recent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more. Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... the subject sufficiently. For there must be the continuous line all through: we see it go from dense ignorance up to intelligence and wisdom; it is only natural that it should go on to intuitive knowledge and to inspiration. Some scant fragments we have of these great gifts of man; where, then, is the whole of which they must be a part? Hidden behind the thin yet seemingly impassable veil which hides it from us as it hid all science, all art, all powers of man till he had the courage ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... greatest power on earth, under majesty itself, was his Honour Mr. Wynn of Dunore, where now, fallen from greatness, the family was considerably larger than the means. The heavily encumbered property had dropped away piece by piece, and the scant residue clung to its owner like shackles. With difficulty the narrow exchequer had raised cash enough to send Robert on this expedition to London, from which much was hoped. The young man had been tolerably well educated; he possessed a certain amount and quality of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... and her small assistant had a busy morning. There was scant time to think about Aunt Jane. When she did appear in Polly's mind, the little girl remembered Mr. Brewster's counsel, and hastened to perform her task in hand with exceeding faithfulness, putting on fresh pillows slips with ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... would be better known. Cary remonstrated gently, renewing the assurance that within a very few days he would be in perfect possession of his limbs. On the other hand, Batoche encouraged Zulma in her resolution. He declared he would regard it as a great favor if she would accept the scant hospitality of his hut for one night. Little Blanche said nothing, but she clung to the skirt of Zulma and there was an appeal in her eye which the latter could not have resisted even if she had been so minded. In her usual decided way, she ordered ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... 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 scientific investigators ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman

... cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... scant justice, cousin,' said Rowland, 'maintaining that I love but myself or for mine own ends. I know that love ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes to few, and ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... instinct for all men of family or title to be found among the undergraduates was amazingly extensive and acute; and she had paid much court to Falloden, as the prospective heir to a marquisate. He had hitherto treated her with scant attention, but she was not easily abashed, and she fastened at once on Lady Laura, whom she had seen once ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that shrimp, that wither'd imp, Wi' a' his noise and caprin, And tak a share wi' those that bear The budget and the apron. And by that stoup, my faith and houp, An' by that dear Kilbaigie,[5] If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie. An' by ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Church was in their eyes a sort of naturalization bureau. And when the Exarchists were rejoicing in their new-found strength and perceiving that this Church of theirs might be a corner-stone of a Great Bulgaria, they were so completely carried away that they bestowed an all-too-scant attention on the methods which they brought to bear. These methods of the enthusiastic Exarchists were altogether deplorable and succeeded in alienating not only the Patriarchist Slavs whom they freely murdered, but even in many cases ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... Mill had barely called the workmen from their dinner pails and baskets when two children came along the road that for some distance follows close to the base of that high wall of cliffs. By their ragged, nondescript clothing which, to say the least, was scant enough to afford them comfort and freedom of limb, and by the dirt, that covered them from the crowns of their bare, unkempt heads to the bottoms of their bare, unwashed feet, it was easy to identify the children as belonging to that ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... so-called drama, in which the awful power of Fate was dissolved by the will; but precisely because this comes to the aid of our weakness do we find ourselves moved if, after painful expectation, we finally receive but scant comfort. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... dawn. I had arisen from the sleepless bed Which my scant means had purchased, and gone forth To taste the air, and cool my burning brow. I wandered on, not knowing where I went, Nor caring whither. There were few astir; The market wagons lumbered slowly in, Piled high with carcasses of slaughtered lambs, Baskets of unhusked corn, and mint, and all ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... Whoop Up trail, a brown streak against the vivid upland green, dipped down the hillside to our right, down to the sage-grown flat, and into the river by the great boulders that gave the ford its name. The blue ridge up the river I gave scant heed to; the Writing-Stone was only a name to me, for I'd never seen the place. My attention was all for the scene at hand. The patch of soft green that I knew for the cottonwoods Rutter had spoken of drew my roving gaze whether I would or no. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the same route, laden with screens, rugs and couch-covers, at least a hundred times that afternoon. She was tired and exasperated at this final hitch, and she burst into the room of the fat freshman who had Ermengarde's part with scant ceremony. What was her amazement to find it ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... in those days, and so, and in no other wise, I held her. When she was kind, we had pleasant talks together: when she treated me with coolness and reserve, I laughed and let her go. Her father needed her, and I did not; and I paid scant attention to her little caprices, although I scolded her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... in the afternoon. The sun hung low in the west, looking fiery red, which promised a fair day on the morrow. Once he had his letters, however, Tom paid but scant attention ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... that very day, and that moments were growing precious, even in the timeless East. Then, turning to the Sultan, he in his turn began to pour out profuse explanations and apologies. The uncouth, misshapen figure on the central divan, however, paid scant heed to his Minister. Right into the fierce, cruel, passionate heart of Sultan Mahomet that strange silence was piercing: piercing as no words could have done, through the crust formed by years of self-seeking and sin, piercing, until it found, until ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... handsomely dressed, though he had not bought a suit expressly, like Randolph. He didn't appear to notice Luke's scant suit. Even if he had, he would have been too much of a ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... all-knowing, and all-powerful God, and are stock arguments of the unbeliever and perplexities of humble faith. Never to have felt the force of the difficulty is not so much the sign of steadfast faith as of scant reflection. To yield to it, and still more, to let it drive us to cast religion aside, is not merely folly, but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... things on the sled with interest and were glad to ascertain that nearly every article stolen was there. The few things missing were of scant importance. ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... sharply to round the Point o' Rocks, he left it, and kept straight on through the sage, entered a rough pass through the huge rock tongue, and came out presently to the trail again, a scant two hundred yards from the Hart haystacks. When he reached the stable, he stopped and looked warily about him, but there was no sight or sound of any there save animals, and he went on silently to the house, his shadow stretching long upon the ground before ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... more abundant life is what we crave. It is of life that our veins are scant. We desire to have the mighty tides of divine life always beating strongly within us, to know the energy, vigor, vitality of God's life in the soul. And we are conscious that this is to be found only ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... of another mile Sparwick was still invisible; nor did the scant-marks of his snowshoes appear to be particularly fresh. He evidently suspected pursuit, and was moving at ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... However, there was a scant mention of the arrival of the Volunteers "upon the scene" (though none at all at the cause of their delay) and an elo-quent paragraph was devoted to their handsome appearance, Mr. Cummings having been one of those who insisted that the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... battle with nature is necessary to keep the road from burial. To prevent this, tamarisk, wild oats, and desert shrubs are planted along the line, and in particular that strange plant of the wilderness, the saxaoul, whose branches are scraggly and scant, but whose sturdy roots sink deep into the sand, seeking moisture in the depths. Fascines of the branches of this plant were laid along the track and covered with sand, and in places palisades were built, of which only the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... received scant sympathy, even from his most intimate friends, and his prestige in the community was henceforth destroyed. Arthur did not crow, for his part. He told the girls frankly of his attempt to run away and evade the meeting, which sensible intention was only frustrated by Bob West's interference, and they ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... three days and six hours ago the Spirit of God came to my poor lost soul and found it in a dirty saloon on the East Side. I was dead—dead to shame, dead to honour, dead to love, dead to the memory of life. I was so low I found scant welcome in hell's own port, the saloon. They knew me and dreaded to see me. I had served time in prison, and when I drank I was an ugly customer for the bravest ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in his study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he said, about seven o'clock ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... or not, I saw none; but after some moments of pause a figure rose erect out of the ring and hobbled toward the boy. I made out an old woman, an old wreck of womanhood, a scant-haired, blue-lipped ruin of what had once been woman. I heard her snivel and sniff and wheeze her "Lord ha' mercy" as she went by, slippering forward on her miserable feet, hugging to her wasted sides what remnant ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... Romanes, and other nations, to eat but once a day. But now many would thinke they should in a short time be halfe famished, if they should eat but twice a day; nay, rather whole dayes and nights bee scant sufficient for many to continue eating and quaffing. Wee ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various

... will have revealed many things that were not thought of in other days. One of Nelson's outstanding anxieties was lest any harm should befall our commerce, and he protected it and our shipping with fine vigilance and with scant support from the then Government, which would not supply him with ships; this at times drove him to expressions of despair. Privateering was more rampant then than it is now, and the belligerents had great difficulty in enforcing neutrals to observe neutrality. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... the whole business on my head. Won't Brooks and Tongs say where they got drunk, and then shan't I be in a scant fixin'?" ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... 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 he could not fight, Nor rise to the clear air of patient right. Somewhere ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various

... quick and comprehending mind saw and suffered things that formerly never affected him. The hard and sometimes cruel discipline, toil from sunrise to sunset, scant food, the stifling of ambitions—all these began now to be perceived and felt, and the impression they left sank into the soul of this rebellious boy. He saw a slave killed by an overseer, on no other ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... mind's eye you saw her, a stout, well-stayed figure in tight brassiere and scant slip, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, in smart hat and veil, attired as though for the street from the neck up and for the bedroom from the ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... marches between farms, every inch of soil were drained, ploughed, manured, and under that improved cultivation rushing up into astonishing wheaten and oaten crops, enriching tenant and proprietor, the aspect of the country would be decidedly uninteresting, and would present scant attraction to the man riding or walking through it. In such a world the tourists would be few. Personally, I should detest a world all red and ruled with the ploughshare in spring, all covered with ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... naturally but a very imperfect and hypothetical representation can be formed of the soft bodies with which they were once clothed. And even then it remains forever doubtful whether the progeny of the prehistoric creature, the scant remains of which we study, has not become entirely extinct, so that it can in no way be regarded as the progenitor of any creature living at present." I should like to know wherein this differs radically from ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... and animated, but it was in the castle courtyard Frank found most amusement. Here of a morning a thousand negroes would be gathered, most of them men sent down from Dunquah, forming part of our native allied army. Their costumes were various but scant, their colors all shades of brown up to the deepest black. Their faces were all in a grin of amusement. The noise of talking and laughing was immense. All were squatted upon the ground, in front of each ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... Feluge the 19 day of Iune, which Feluge is one dayes iourney from hence. Notwithstanding some of our company came not hither till the last day of the last moneth, which was for want of Camels to cary our goods: for at this time of the yeere, by reason of the great heate that is here, Camels are very scant to be gotten. And since our comming hither we haue found very small sales, but diuers say that in the winter our commodities will be very well sold, I pray God their words may prooue true. I thinke cloth, kersies and tinne, haue neuer bene here at so low prices as they are now. Notwithstanding, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... least, of the New England people. They may not know it, and those who are richer may not imagine it. They are apt to be middle-aged maiden ladies from university towns, living upon carefully guarded investments; young married ladies with a scant child or two, and needing rest and change of air; college professors with nothing but their modest salaries; literary men or women in the beginning of their tempered success; clergymen and their wives ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... which had been previously habitual to it. Lucy observed the glow of pleasure that lighted up her face when she heard again the familiar sound of the organ in the distance. The padre was very good to her, she said, and though they often had long weary rounds, with a scant allowance of pennies, they always had enough to eat; and hitherto it had been very pleasant, and she had no hard scrubbing or washing ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... mail box without, carrying his letters to his writing table and leaving them there unopened. He loved to speculate as to whom the writers were and what they may have said to him. This piqued his curiosity, and tided him over a scant breakfast at an inexpensive but fly-blown restaurant where he was wont to eat or make a more or less brave effort to eat whenever he had the wherewithal to settle for the same. Breakfast over and gone the young man returned to his Eyrie, and in due course was at his ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... fortune, especially the farm itself, to which he had given so many years of complete concentration. Certainly, if Rose were ready to be his, he might not hesitate even a second; but this flower was still to be won by him, and this morning, aware of what scant grounds he had upon which to venture any forecasts, he felt as full of doubt as he had been of confidence last night. It had been a saddening experience, but fortunate, for all that, inasmuch as nothing serious had come of it, except that he was greatly sobered. Martin could not understand ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... loves is not far from my heart. But come, we have scant time for preparation; no, do not endeavor to walk; your weight is ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... their foliage so scant and slight that they afforded no shelter whatever from the burning rays of the sun; which appeared to strike up again from the sandstone with redoubled heat, so that it was really painful to touch or to stand upon a bare rock: we therefore kept moving onwards in the hope ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... foredoomed to failure. It was shown scant favour by the Babylonian Kassites. No record survives to indicate the character of the agreement between Kadashman-Kharbe and Ashur-uballit, but there can be little doubt that it involved the abandonment by Babylonia ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... sea is a very impressive ceremony. Had Mr Vernon not been on board, the dead would have been committed to their floating grave with a scant allowance of it. He, however, came forward and read some portions of Scripture, and offered up some short and appropriate prayers—not for those who had departed; he had prayed with them and for them while they were jet in the flesh—but that strength and support ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... What a tragedy, by the way, that the one subject perfectly cut out for his genius, the one subject which required none but genuinely artistic treatment, his "Bathers," executed forty years before these last works, has disappeared, leaving but scant traces! Yet even these suffice to enable the competent student to recognise that this composition must have been the greatest masterpiece in figure art of ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... Radack Chain of the Marshall Islands, and the wind falling light, and being surrounded by reefs and low uninhabited coral atolls, Tierney brought to, and anchored for the night. You know the spot, about nine miles due west of Ailuk, and between two sandy atolls covered with a scant growth of cocoanuts and ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... in their way are wooed with candles burnt before their images, or little altars set up to them at home; but they are sometimes treated with scant courtesy if they do not answer the expectations of their worshippers. On one occasion in Madrid, I remember, San Isidro, who is the patron of the labouring classes, had the bad taste, as his votaries considered, to send ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... Lord Chamberlains. Repeal that act! again let Humour roam Wild o'er the stage—we've time for tears at home; 360 Let Archer [34] plant the horns on Sullen's brows, And Estifania gull her "Copper" [35] spouse; The moral's scant—but that may be excused, Men go not to be lectured, but amused. He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill; [36] Aye, but Macheath's example—psha!—no more! It formed no ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... ventilation, a properly regulated workshop is the exception. The average room is either stuffy and close, or hot and close, and even where windows abound they are seldom opened. Toilet facilities are generally scant and inadequate, a hundred workers being dependent sometimes on a single closet or sink, and that, too often, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... brutes down below!" said Jarette, fiercely; and in a slow surly way first one and then the other was dragged to the hatchway and lowered down, with scant attention to ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... lies in this, that as bishops must be celibate, whereas the parochial clergy must be married, the bishops are all recruited from the monks. But besides this they have been a strong spiritual and religious influence, as is recognized even by those who have scant sympathy with monastic ideals (see Harnack, What ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... government and who reside there could avoid, but do not prepare for; and they are notoriously due to the fault and misgovernment of the persons to whom your Majesty has entrusted the administration of these islands—partly on account of their scant energy and vigilance, but most of all through what has resulted from their not being willing to fulfil the orders, instructions, and royal decrees which your Majesty had previously issued for the attainment ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... want to trouble you, no fudder. I can fend for myself now," the poor woman said, when at length she lay at peace between the sheets; her face bathed, and the limp grimy fingers; the scant dry hair smoothed decently down the fallen temples. "I'd rather it'd ha' been another woman that had done me the sarvice, but I ain't above bein' thankful to you, for all that. All I'll ask of ye now, Dinah Brome, is that ye'll have an eye to Depper's fourses cake in th' oven, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... lest with it should come observation and remark upon the agitation and distress only too visible in Harry's countenance; and yet it was difficult, even for her, to keep up the ball of small-talk, for Solomon was always slow and scant of speech, and the new-comer rarely opened his mouth, and then only to utter a monosyllable. His manner, too, was embarrassing; he turned his white and stony face from one woman to the other, like an automaton, but with ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... has been reported to me of a youth of 17, the youngest of a large family who are all very strong and entirely normal. He is himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears to have only one way of obtaining sexual excitement and gratification. It is his custom ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was only four feet and a half long. In the course of all these years he never raised his hood, no matter what the ardor of the sun or the rain's strength. He never put on a shoe. He wore a garment of coarse sackcloth, with nothing else upon his skin. This garment was as scant as possible, and over it a little cloak of the same stuff. When the cold was great he took off the cloak and opened for a while the door and little window of his cell. Then he closed them and resumed the mantle—his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... well understand your surprise. My father gave me scant thought—his soul was bound up ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... larger than Washington, DC Land boundaries: 0 km Coastline: 68.5 km Maritime claims: exclusive fishing zone: 12 nm territorial sea: 12 nm International disputes: none Climate: tropical marine; little seasonal temperature variation Terrain: flat with a few hills; scant vegetation Natural resources: negligible; white sandy beaches Land use: arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% meadows and pastures: 0% forest and woodland: 0% other: 100% Irrigated land: NA km2 Environment: lies ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to her. She has still the rude, coarse labor of men. With her rude husband she still shares the hard service of a field-hand. Her house, which shelters, perhaps, some six or eight children, embraces but two rooms. Her furniture is of the rudest kind. The clothing of the household is scant and of the coarsest material, has ofttimes the garniture of rags; and for herself and offspring is marked, not seldom, by the absence of both hats and shoes. She has rarely been taught to sew, and the field labor of slavery times has kept her ignorant of the habitudes of ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... changes in the minds of his devotees; why, then, do these changes produce no recognizable effect on the course of events? The God who can work upon the human mind has the key to the situation in his hands—why, then, does he make such scant use of it? Is God only a luxury for the intellectually wealthy? The champagne of the spiritual life? A stimulant and anodyne highly appreciated in the best circles, but inaccessible to the man of small spiritual ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... was expected to hasten back to her examination at the sound of the bell, and had, in fact, been waiting for Miss Rowe to come and fetch her. The latter seemed annoyed. She hurried Patty to her place, and handed her a fresh supply of manuscript paper with very scant ceremony, then, taking up a book, appeared to be preparing some lesson. Patty remembered how Avis had hinted that Miss Rowe was not popular, and she thought she began to understand why. In spite of the ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... member of the House would often find it hard to endure. There is something indeed strange, wistful, almost uncanny, in the unbreakable gentleness of that white figure, with the ivory complexion, the scant white hair, the large white collar and broad white shirt-front—there is something which becomes almost an obsession to the observer in watching the figure with its strangely tranquil and gentle expression in the heat and centre of all this fierce ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... unobtrusive Vital seemed to be entirely forgotten, except by the neighbor whom he had so cruelly crowded. Had it not been for this kindly, unrevengeful soul, Vital's inner man would have been in as beggarly a condition at the conclusion of the meal as at the beginning. As it was, it received but scant attention. Seeing the poverty of his plate, without asking leave, ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... pursue the Tartarines, zif thei fleen in bataylle. For in fleynge, thei schooten behynden hem, and sleen bothe men and hors. And whan thei wil fighte, thei wille schokken hem to gidre in a plomp; that zif there be 20000 men, men schalle not wenen, that there be scant 10000. And thei cone wel wynnen lond of straungeres, but thei cone not kepen it. For thei han grettre lust to lye in tentes with outen, than for to lye in castelle or in townes. And thei preysen no ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... driver's whip. Nothing but the bare, bleak, rectangular outlines of the cabin of the Man on the Beach met their eyes. All else was a desolate expanse, unrelieved by any structure higher than the tussocks of scant beach grass that clothed it. They were so utterly helpless that the driver's derisive laughter gave way at last to good humor and suggestion. "Look yer," he said finally, "I don't know ez it's your fault you ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... his back trail. He had hardly settled himself before a man stepped from behind a stump and struck out rapidly upon his trail. The man was traveling light, apparently studying the ground as he walked. Wentworth glanced about him and noted that the rocky ridge would give the man scant opportunity for trailing him to his position. The figure was coming up the ridge now. As it passed a twisted pine, Wentworth got a good look into his face, and the sight of it sent cold shivers up his spine that prickled uncomfortably at the roots of his hair. For the face was that of Alex ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... yourself. Heroes are not always thin. Hamlet was fat and scant of breath. I can see you as Hamlet, whereas to cast you for ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... celery and cover with cold water. Let it come to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until meat is tender and comes easily from the bone. Pick meat from the bones, strain liquid, which should measure a scant 3 cups. (If less add water). Put meat and liquid into a bowl. Add 3 tblsp. strong cider vinegar, 3/4 tsp. salt, black pepper and several thin slices of lemon. Chill overnight, remove surplus fat from the top. Turn out ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown

... month; sometimes languidly, sometimes spasmodically, never energetically. Like a slow, dull fever, it had wasted and enfeebled the two countries without redounding more to the profit of the one than to the glory of the other; and the glory being too scant to be divided between them, they wisely left the crimson fog to the humor of the winds. How the winds disposed of it, the ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... smallest possible stream. Above, some water carriers were slowly filling their casks, while the mules patiently waited for their burdens; below, was a throng of washerwomen, beating their clothes upon the stones, just moistened by the scant water which flowed over them, and interchanging Spanish Billingsgate with each other and a gang of ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... business letter. He read it with scant attention, and returned it to his breast-pocket. The second envelope bore the handwriting of his senior subaltern, now in England on short leave. The two men were close friends; but Eldred's last letter ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... repeated Rene, and helped Lady Landale to alight. Then one of the figures darted forward and whispered a rapid sentence in the Frenchman's ear. Rene uttered an exclamation, but his mistress intervened with scant patience: ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... aristocrats is thus government by the mentally and morally inferior. And yet—a Bill for giving at last some scant measure of self-government to persecuted Ireland has to run the gauntlet, in our nineteenth-century England, of an ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... lodger had vanished from the scene on the day following his threatened immersion—a half-hearted proposition on his part of "facing out the undeserved obloquy, living down the coarse persecution" meeting with as scant encouragement from his ecclesiastical superior, the vicar, as from themselves. Theresa—it really was hard on her—shared their eclipse. Hence the humble obscurity of the free seats, where she sniffed, dabbed her eyes and gurgled, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... lull in the voices, Maud Barrington, who may have felt it incumbent on her to show him some scant civility, turned towards him as she said, "I am afraid our conversation will not appeal to you. Partly because there is so little else to interest us, we talk wheat throughout the year ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... is not a flat plain, but a rolling country; some portions of its laud drink the blessed waters during two or three months only; others do not see it every year, as the overflow does not reach certain points annually. Besides, seasons of scant water occur, and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit. Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man has to irrigate out ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... would Shandon say his ranch was worth? Shandon did not know, but hazarded the guess that it might bring twenty-five dollars an acre. He did not consider it worth more because it was good grazing land only for part of the year, and like the rest of the valley there was scant water on it through the summer. Twelve ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next morning, in a fiction that there was not a ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... been a woman to work much. So that now she would stand often at the garden-gate, watching the scant world go by. And the sight of children pleased her, made her happy. She had usually an apple or a few sweets in her pocket. She liked children to smile ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... renowned; where on the mournful shore Rose Hero's tower, and Helle born of cloud (32) Took from the rolling waves their former name. Nowhere with shorter space the sea divides Europe from Asia; though Pontus parts By scant division from Byzantium's hold Chalcedon oyster-rich: and small the strait Through which Propontis pours the Euxine wave. Then marvelling at their ancient fame, he seeks Sigeum's sandy beach and Simois' stream, Rhoeteum noble for its Grecian tomb, And all the hero's shades, the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... when Mark gave her the message, and from that moment she was calmer. She did not fret Mark with questions even as much as Annaple did, she tried to prevent her father from raging at the scant information, and she even endeavoured to employ herself with some of her ordinary occupations, though all the time she kept up the ceaseless watch. 'Mr. Dutton would not have said that without good hope,' she averred, 'and I ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... charm. When a door was opened he could see a fire of logs on the ample hearth shooting its yellow tongues up the sooty chimney-throat. Soft creole voices murmured and sang, or jangled their petty domestic discords. Women in scant petticoats, leggings and moccasins swept snow from the squat verandas, or fed the pigs in little sties behind the cabins. Everybody cried cheerily: "Bon jour, Monsieur, comment allez-vous?" as he went by, always accompanying the verbal salute with a ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... The man was her lover, for, though he had not declared himself, she was quite aware of that, and she was his partisan and very jealous of his credit. It was difficult to forgive those who had injured him, and these people in England had shown him scant consideration, and had spoken of him slightingly to her, a stranger. He noticed her ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... would not have discovered some way of clearing the black cloud distracting his brain. Nothing would induce him to go down to the boarders' dining-room for his meals, and the sight of a servant alarmed him so that it was Ann who took him the scant food he would eat. As the time of her return to England with her father drew near, she wondered what Mr. Tembarom would do without her services. It was she who suggested that they must have a name for him, and the name of a part of Manchester had provided ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... took led to one of the scant water-courses that issued, half spent, from the canada, to fade out utterly on the hot June plain. It was thickly bordered with willows and alders, that made an arbored and feasible path through the dense woods and undergrowth. He continued ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... give orders hurriedly; the dugout was brought up to the landing, and he waved Pocahontas and her maidens in with scant ceremony. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... fawning attitude of his wife quite unhorsed me. If I am to see the devil I'd rather he'd frown than smile. Cobb had very little to say to us, and left the room at the first opportunity. In doing so he had shown scant consideration for his wife, however, as it left a burden upon her shoulders that must have taxed her strength. But she was not unequal to it. Her smile broadened after he had gone, and there was a tone of deeper sincerity ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... not represented at all, because, while an interesting personage in her way, she belongs to German literature neither by her form nor by her matter. The religious poetry of the twelfth century receives rather scant attention, partly because it is mostly pretty poor stuff—there is not much else like the beautiful Arnstein hymn to the Virgin, No. XIII—and partly because it embodies ideas and feelings that belonged to medieval ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... assistants collected from all over the Colony. It was hot, although the climbing mercury usually stopped at about one hundred degrees. But that only further inflamed the enthusiasm of the group. They had the real thing, and they had a real leader—a very boyish looking boy of scant twenty-five. They forgot to watch the thermometer. They were more interested in water and transportation and labor and all the other things that are as necessary to a good mine as the gold ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... S.J., entitled La Stele de Si-ngan. The date of the tablet seems to mark the zenith of Nestorian Christianity in China; after this date it began to decay. Marco Polo refers to it as existing in the 13th century; but then it fades out of sight, leaving scant traces in Chinese literature ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various



Words linked to "Scant" :   skimp, stint, deficient, render, short, restrict, furnish, insufficient, scantness, light, provide, work



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