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Scant   /skænt/   Listen
Scant

adjective
(compar. scanter; superl. scantest)
1.
Less than the correct or legal or full amount often deliberately so.  Synonyms: light, short.  "A scant cup of sugar" , "Regularly gives short weight"



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"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... on the rocky shore that afternoon, meeting the steely north-east blast with a good deal of resolution, if scant enjoyment. Something in the immediate future she found vaguely disquieting, something connected with ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... before. He had fed his hunger upon the few wild plums he had found, and more than once he had descended to the flume to slake his thirst; then reclimbed the height again, for there he knew lay the road of his goal. Again and again he tapped the solid rock or the scant earth about it for a response to that magical tip upon his rod; and now, as the second day lightened the gulch, the ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... Hills moved slowly down the bank to the water's edge. Behind him followed his old friend, no longer the emboldened Devil Anse with fire in his eagle eye, but a meek, a silent, penitent figure. The autumn breeze stirred his snow-white hair, his scant gray beard. Upon his breast the old clansman held respectfully his wide-brimmed felt as he walked with head uplifted in supplication. Behind him followed his six sons. Jonse came first, Jonse, who had loved pretty Rosanna McCoy, reckless Jonse, who like his father had ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... years of life, met hundreds of pretty women, scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really beautiful women. But he knew at once, beyond all possibility of question or doubt, that he had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the orchard. Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to live a generation ago had to ask himself if the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading with the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds the only companions, and out of all touch with the outside world, letters coming but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always the same, as the staple items in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Cardington was to accompany him to the bishop's, but as it was still too soon to call for him, he stood for a few moments looking down upon the campus. The giant shadow of the Hall had now crept to the verge of the plateau. There was no human figure on its bleak expanse, but the small trees which found scant nourishment in the rock beneath swayed gently in the broken wind, like a line of sentries marking time. In the centre of the line the flagpole sprang up, thin and white, lifting the stars and stripes into the lurid light above the shadow. He could hear the whipping of the halyards against ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... greatest glory, The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In Captain Butch's Sophomore year, he had flung his bulk into the fray, training, sacrificing, fighting like a Trojan, only to see the pennant lost by a scant three inches, as Jack Merritt's forty-yard drop-kick for the goal that would have won the Championship struck the cross-bar and bounded back into the field. And the past season-old Bannister could still vision that tragic scene of the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... Andy and swung out on the trail. Fastened tightly to her back were her camera and a small travelling satchel. In addition, she carried for alpenstock the willow pole of Neepoosa. Her dress was of the mountaineering sort, short-skirted and scant, allowing the greatest play with the least material, and withal ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... He gave scant greeting to the throng, He waved the guests aside: "Now haste! for I, Earl Roderick, Will wait ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson

... MORAL is: Albeit lots Of people follow Dr. Watts, The sluggard, when his means are scant, Should seek ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... was so weary that it took an effort to lift my hand. A strange lassitude made me indifferent. But Herky's calm mention of taking me back to Holston changed the color of my mood. I began to feel more cheerful. The meal we ate was scant enough—biscuits and steaks of broiled venison with a pinch of salt; but, starved as we were, it was more than satisfactory. Herky and Bill were absurdly eager to serve me. Even Bud was kind to me, though ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... followed by Lawrence and Mrs Roby, who was assisted by the Captain—for she walked with great difficulty even when aided by her crutches. In a few seconds they stood beside Mrs Leven's bed. It was a lowly bed, with scant and threadbare coverings, and she who lay on it was of a lowly spirit—one who for many years had laid her head on the bosom of Jesus, and had found Him, through a long course of poverty and mental distress, "a very present help ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... am relieved for a few minutes that I may have my coffee. Being the last man, I get a bo'sun's share of the grounds. To my protests the cook gives scant heed. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... Among the scant certainties vouchsafed us is that every age lives by its special catchwords. Whether from rebellion against the irking monotony of its inherited creeds or from compulsions generated by its own complexities, each age develops its code of convenient illusions which ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... best, even when these officials realized the responsibility of their charge and were actuated by humane impulses, the county houses offered no chance of remedial treatment. Custody and maintenance, the former mainly a reliance on force, the later often of scant provision, were the sum total of what was deemed necessary for the lunatics. In their new environment they find everything as different in accommodations and treatment as the word hospital in the title of the institution is different in sound and significance from the hope-dispelling, soul-chilling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... my love, With wind alone the branches move, And though the leaves be scant above The Autumn ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... bands, and cloak into a ditch, for experience had taught him that, however useful as a passport they might be while still within the lines of the troops of the Commons, they would be likely to procure him but scant welcome when he entered those of the Royalists. Round Oxford the royal army were encamped, and Harry speedily discovered that his father was with his troop at his own place. Turning his head again eastward, he rode to Abingdon, and quickly afterward ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... clear, still waters of the lake like shoals of floating metal; bears were seen hulking away from the watering places of sandy shores; and wild geese whistled overhead. After the terrible dangers of the voyage, with scant sleep and scanter fare, the country seemed, as Radisson says, a terrestrial paradise. The Indians gave solemn thanks to their gods of earth and forest, "and we," writes Radisson, "to the God of gods." Indian ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... with a soil composed of volcanic ash and the disintegration of basaltic rocks which, together with some humus from decayed vegetation, has made a field of surpassing fertility for the production of the cereals with scant water supply; but under the magic touch of irrigation it doubles its output and makes of it not only a grain field but an orchard and garden as well. Underneath the forests of eastern Washington, along the northern ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell

... sings, they are content; and well for them that they should be. They have received their nation's thanks, and ask no more, save to lie there in peace. They have had justice done them; and more than one is there, who had scant justice done him while alive. Even Castlereagh is there, in spite of Byron's and of Shelley's scorn. It may be that they too have found out ere now, that there he ought to be. The nation has been just to him who, in such wild times as the world had not seen for full three hundred ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... and as Wunpost rode in he looked it over critically, though with none too friendly eyes. Being laid out in a land of magnificent distances, there was plenty of room between the houses, and the broad main street seemed more suited for driving cattle than for accommodating the scant local traffic. There had been a time when all that space was needed to give swing-room to twenty-mule teams, but that time was past and the two sparse rows of houses seemed dwarfed and pitifully few. Yet there were new ones going up, and quite a sprinkling of tents; ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... Five Nations of the Iroquois had always been her allies against the French, had guarded her borders and fought her battles. What they wanted in return were gifts, attentions, just dealings, and active aid in war; but they got them in scant measure. Their treatment by the province was short-sighted, if not ungrateful. New York was a mixture of races and religions not yet fused into a harmonious body politic, divided in interests and torn with intestine disputes. Its Assembly was made up in large part of men unfitted to ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... sudden possession of the yellow flowers, tossing them with scant courtesy on the table, and leaning forward he grasped her hands. "May, what has this to do with it? Does it crowd me out of your life? Since you were a little girl, since the days when we played together, you have been my help and inspiration. Do you mean ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... flushed crimson to the ears, and the three married women felt unutterably humiliated at being met thus by the soldier in company with the girl whom he had treated with such scant ceremony. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... camp before the east was light, Lambert noted that another man had ridden in. This was a wiry young fellow with a short nose and fiery face, against which his scant eyebrows and lashes were as ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... was it to be thought of that he should allow himself to be kidnapped into such an arrangement by the impudence of any Miss Dawkins. But there was, he felt, a difficulty in answering such a proposition from a young lady with a direct negative, especially while he was so scant of breath. So he wiped his brow again, and looked ...
— An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids • Anthony Trollope

... was the object 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... grace and beauty. The present dress of women, prescribed by fashion, and particularly the abominable false hair and the preposterously ugly hats, are sufficiently barbarous; but the Oneida dress, which is so scant that it forbids any graceful arrangement of drapery, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... Plaza. The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes leading out to nowhere in particular. The orchards and cornfields, primitively cultivated, made tiny oases beside the trickling streams and sandy beds of dry arroyos. The sheep grazed on the scant grasses of the plain. The steep gray mesa slopes were splotched with clumps of evergreen shrubs and pinon trees. And over all ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... cell 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 way, as he ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... prints "the golden poem of summer." It was a deep-blue heaven with Fujiyama to the left and golden grain beneath, persons sitting on benches, heat, radiance, joy! One of Hiroshige's prints he dubbed "the great poem of the moon." On wide, moist, melancholy meadows, scant-leaved trees, like weeping willows, their branches drooping in the mirror of an idly flowing stream, barges loaded with turf passing by, a floating bridge propelled by Japanese raftsmen, the water blue in the evening twilight, a great, pale moon, veiled by pale, bloody tints, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... I'me too true to honour To scant it in the blazing: though to thee All that report can render ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... not trouble ourselves about this. It is the same with the good and the useful in every age. A few names are preserved, but the great multitude are forgotten. Earth keeps scant record of its benefactors. But there is a place where every smallest kindness done in the name of Christ ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... round the collar, furnishing itself as with a ruff, when the parent rosette turns to a yellowish-green. Of all the forms this is the most constant bloomer. The favourite variety, to which an engraving can do but scant justice, is superior to the above kinds in all its parts. Its blooming period is in early summer, but specimens often grow in size and beauty for three or five years without producing flowers. The foliage is the more admired feature, ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... desirest to achieve the highest excellence in practice, understand that unless thou build it on the solid foundations of nature, thou shalt reap but scant honour and gain by thy work; and if thy foundation is sound, thy works shall be many and good, and bring great honour to thee, and ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... bring back home a pair of rosier cheeks, saying he should not grudge to pay the bill: and Mother shed some tears o'er me, and packed up for me much good gear of her own spinning and knitting, and all bade me farewell right lovingly. I o'erheard Cousin Bess say to Mother that the sun should scant seem to shine till I came back: the which dear Mother did heartily echo, saying she wist not at all what had come o'er me, but it was her good hope that a southward winter should make ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... look of astonishment annoyed the Master, even while it hurt him. He took scant pleasure in rebuffing this old friend; but certainly "Captain Alden" would not bear discussing. Feeling himself in a kind of impasse regarding Alden, and fearing some telltale expression in his eyes, the Master swung up his binoculars ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... hostilities, and make war on us, trusting to his numerous ships—although afterward it did not turn out as happily as he thought, as your Majesty will see by the relation which the viceroy sends from this Nueva Espana. [20] The blockade being so long and rations so scant, the poor soldiers were in such distress that they took to hunting rats, of which there are great numbers in that land, and which are much larger than those of Espana. With all this privation, and the allurements and abundance in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... fired it it kicked so hard it almost killed me. I feel that I had a more narrow escape by shooting that gun than I had with the Indians. When we returned I had taken nine different scalps. The Crees who had not been scalped had taken refuge in the scant forest, and my father said to quit and go home. So we took pity on the tribe, and let them go, so they could tell the story. I remember that we killed over three hundred, and many more that I cannot remember. When we returned we began to count how many we had killed. ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... Christina Binnie? There is nothing but scant and want in them foreign countries. Oh! my lass, he will come home, and be glad to come home; and you will have the hank in your own hand. See that you spin ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... either side, by Trojans and Achaians. But even so they could not put the Argives to rout, but they held their ground, as an honest woman that laboureth with her hands holds the balance, and raises the weight and the wool together, balancing them, that she may win scant wages for her children; so evenly was strained their war and battle, till the moment when Zeus gave the greater renown to Hector, son of Priam, who was the first to leap within the wall of the Achaians. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... treat him with scant ceremony. Since she was of the opinion that he ought to feel flattered by our invitations, she thought it only right and proper that he should never come to see us in summer without a basket of peaches or raspberries from his garden, and that from ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... long since adopted M. Venizelos found it convenient to adopt all his theories. M. Delcasse, when called upon to explain why the Greek offer met with such scant ceremony, did so by saying that it came from M. Gounaris, who was the instrument of the personal policy of the sovereign, and who combated among the electors M. Venizelos, the champion of rapprochement with the Entente; ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... wi' theirs compar'd, And shudder at the niffer; But cast a moment's fair regard, What maks the mighty differ? Discount what scant occasion gave, That purity ye pride in, And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) Your better art ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... neutral requirements was easier here than elsewhere. The distance from the scene of war, although it involved an additional cost for transportation, also rendered an evasion of the requirements of neutrality less conspicuous. The supply of horses and mules in the European market was scant, especially in the class of animals which was needed, but it seems obvious that the motive which actuated the purchases was rather the greater ease in evading neutral prohibitions than the desire to secure a better market at a distance of ten thousand miles from the seat of war. Possibly both motives ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... that now," Braceway said to the chief. They each grasped one of the prisoner's arms and hustled him with scant ceremony to his bedroom. Bristow removed his trousers and, unbuckling the belt and straps of the steel brace, ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... she said vaguely; but, after all, there was scant consolation in this truism, for the young suffer very keenly; a sense of impatience, of injustice, aggravates their pain. The old accept their sorrows more meekly; their reason comes to their aid. "Man is born to trouble," they say, and the philosophy ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the boys called the boat by name, knowing her voice: "It's the Bessie May Brown!" They started on a run to the bluff overlooking the river, their short legs making a full mile of the scant furlong. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... name Madam Beritola Caracciola. The said Arrighetto, who had the governance of the island in his hands, hearing that King Charles the First[102] had overcome and slain Manfred at Benevento and that all the realm had revolted to him and having scant assurance of the short-lived fidelity of the Sicilians, prepared for flight, misliking to become a subject of his lord's enemy; but, his intent being known of the Sicilians, he and many other friends and servants of King Manfred were suddenly ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... search under the table, flare the candles, bear in in triumph the smell of burnt fat from the kitchen, and poke into the tender places of rheumatic patients; while, in spite of all these, the room was so close and redolent of dinner, that fish, flesh, and fowl were breathed in every breath. A scant and well-worn carpet covered the space on which the dinner-table stood; and portable curtains of insufficient number and enormous size ornamented a few favoured windows, waved in the erratic draughts, and tripped up incautious attendants, diffusing all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... that I might ever in my bosom bear a treasure Strong to ransom life from sorrow, strong to furnish it with joy; So I sought with keenest insight—neither small nor scant the measure To content ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... beamed with almost summer power through the shutterless window of their cabin, and ironically disclosed the details of its rude interior. Two or three mangy, half-eaten buffalo-robes, a bearskin, some suspicious-looking blankets, rifles and saddles, deal-tables, and barrels, made up its scant inventory. A strip of faded calico hung before a recess near the chimney, but so blackened by smoke and age that even feminine curiosity respected its secret. Mrs. Rightbody was in high spirits, and informed her daughter that she was at last on the track of her ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... former purpose to fulfil, ' ' And sing the dungeon's praise with honour due- For this angelic tongues were scant of skill. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... lord!" he said, "our larder is to-day somewhat scant, for crowds of guests have scoured our house of all its choicest fare. But we will give you the very best we have, if you ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... victory.] It was greatly to our credit that we had been enterprising enough to fit out such an effective little flotilla on Lake Erie, and for this Perry deserves the highest praise. [Footnote: Some of my countrymen will consider this but scant approbation, to which the answer must be that a history is not ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... said I, 'what need? since I have a companion in thee who is all the knaves on earth in one?' and thought to abash him but his face shone with pride, and hand on breast he did bow low to me. 'If thy wit be scant, good Bon Bec, thy manners are a charm. I have made a good bargain.' So he to the 'rotboss,' and I to a decent inn, and sketched the landlord's daughter by candle-light, and started at morn batzen three the richer, but could not find ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... island. There was no feeling of mere adventure in his heart now. It was purely sense of duty that drove his trembling legs down the hillside. He shivered miserably in the night air and felt for his pistol-butt, which gave him scant comfort. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... sense, sometimes intellect, is the first to awake in us—supposing we are dowered with an intellect; but pain, which is the perfecting of our nature, must precede the soul's awakening and for Evadne at that age, with her limited personal knowledge of life and scant experience of every form of human emotion which involves suffering, such an awakening was impossible. The first feeling of a girl as happily situated, healthy-minded, and physically strong as she was is bound to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... bewildered dream, never looking back till they were out of sight. The dream gave way to bitter and wild thoughts, upon which it will do none of us any good to dwell. He put down the little girl outside the schools, turning abruptly from the mother, a poor widow in scant, well-preserved black clothes who was waiting for the child, and began thanking him for his care of her; refused Grey's pressing invitation to tea, and set his face eastward. Bitterer and more wild and more scornful grew his ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... note of this strategy or else seemed spell-bound by the blazing eyes of its adversary. Nearer and nearer she came, even more slowly than before, with tense muscles ready to carry her far to one side should the snake suddenly awake to its peril and strike. At last but a scant yard ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... Harlson, with a great appetite, as usual,—for he had not eaten since his scant breakfast,—went out to get his supper. It was not dinner, for he never, at that time, dined. He had in his pocket twenty cents. The next day he would get his usual weekly stipend. He would spend fifteen cents, he thought, upon his supper, then return to the office to sleep, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... their shoulders a wooden box painted a glaring yellow; and so narrow was the box and so shallow-looking, that on the instant the thought came to me that the poor clay inclosed therein must feel cramped in such scant quarters. Upon the top of the box, at its widest, highest point, rested a wreath of red flowers, a clumsy, spraddly wreath from which the red blossoms threatened to shake loose. Even at a distance of some rods I could ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... Christmas" in Happy Valley. The women give scant heed to it, and to the men it means "a jug of liquor, a pistol in each hand, and a galloping nag." There had been target-shooting at Uncle Jerry's mill to see who should drink old Jeb Mullins's moonshine and who should smell, and so good was the marksmanship that nobody went without ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... once in the canner. A little overcooking does not injure the quality of canned corn. Corn should not be tightly packed in the jar; it expands a little in processing and for this reason each jar should be filled scant full. Corn that has a cheesy appearance after canning had reached the dough stage before being packed. Corn should never be allowed to remain in the cold dip and large quantities should not be dipped at one time unless sufficient help is ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... transportation by water. Cambric gowns and French slippers are highly appropriate and agreeable at the present moment, but must be sacrificed to the stern necessities of the case. You must make a dowdy of yourself in some usefully short, scant, dingy costume, which will try the nerves of all beholders, and triumphantly prove that women were ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... two golden bars. Into this drowsy room that exhaled a sweet odor of youth, the bright morning brought with it fresh, cheerful air; but the young girl went back and sat down on the edge of the bed in a thoughtful attitude, clad only in her scant nightdress, which made her look still more slender, with her long tapering limbs, her strong, slender body, with its round throat, round neck, round and supple arms; and her adorable neck and throat, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... was very sad as he pointed out this spot to his visitor. A few scraggly hedges and an apple tree, a charred bit of fence, a chimney foundation are the only markers of the home he built after years of a hard struggle to have a home. His land is all gone except the scant five acres upon which he lives, and this is only an expanse of broom straw. He is no longer able to cultivate the land, not even having ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... the invasion of Soho by the girl-clerk and the book-keeper, one cannot but love it. I love it because, in my early days of scant feeding, it was the one spot in London where I could gorge to repletion for a shilling. There was a little place in Wardour Street, the Franco-Suisse—it is still there—whose shilling table d'hote was a marvel: And I always had my bob's ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... around, or ate them in abstracted silence; while not a few laid their heads and arms on the tables, and apparently slept. For sleeping in earnest there were rooms overhead containing many narrow beds with scant and coarse covering, which, however, the law compelled to be clean. One of the ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... now stopped to watch a tall Jamaica negro—or so we thought him to be—asking Gates for a place in the crew. His clothing was too scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... scant rations and general discomfort, the pluck and spirit of the great majority of our men continued unabated. To give an idea of the insufficiency of the rations we received at this time, the following incident which ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... language. Those who were groping in the dark a few hours ago are now in the brightest sunshine, while the oracles of yesterday are the meekest disciples to-day. I rode from New-Haven to London in the same car with three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen, coming up to the Exhibition, with a scant half-allowance of English among them; and their efforts to understand the signs, &c., were interesting. "London Stout," displayed in three-foot letters across the front of a drinking-house, arrested their attention: "Stoot? Stoot?" ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... no time in reaching Cartown with the belated mail, and so was obliged to leave the girls an the road with scant ceremony, hardly pausing to discuss why he had been bound when no apparent robbery ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... 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

... bor'st the battle's brunt At Queenston and at Lundy's Lane,— On whose scant ranks, but iron front ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... aversion to death. I resume my lackeyship, Lord Rokesle. Perhaps 'twas only the gin. Perhaps—In any event, I am once more at your service. And as guaranty of this I warn you that you are exhibiting in the affair scant forethought. Mr. Heleigh is but three miles distant. If he, by any chance, get wind of this business, Denstroude will find a boat for him readily enough—ay, and men, too, now that the Colonel is at feud with you. Many of your people visit the mainland every night, and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... and 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 ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... who watches them from birth, The Genius, guardian of each child of earth, Born when we're born and dying when we die, Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why I will not hoard, but, though my heap be scant, Will take on each occasion what I want, Nor fear what my next heir may think, to find There's less than he expected left behind; While, ne'ertheless, I draw a line between Mirth and excess, the frugal and the mean. 'Tis not extravagance, but plain ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... the influence of India has been notable in extent, strength and duration. Scant justice is done to her position in the world by those histories which recount the exploits of her invaders and leave the impression that her own people were a feeble, dreamy folk, sundered from the rest of mankind by their ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... This, scant as it is, is all I have to say about Bergson on this occasion—I hope it may send some of you to his original text. I must now turn back to the point where I found it advisable to appeal to his ideas. You remember my own intellectualist difficulties in the last lecture, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... narrow white streets of the town Leap up from the blue water's edge to the wood, 15 Scant room for man's range between mountain and sea, And the market where woodsmen from over the hill May traffic, and sailors from far foreign ports With treasure brought in from ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman

... This was scant encouragement. People began crowding up the companion-way, coughing and wheezing in the steam; and soon the deck, that but a moment before had been almost without an occupant, was crowded with excited human beings in all ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... 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 ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... broadening at its ford; the wild and lonely aspect of the country round about. On the farther bank the long lofty ridge of rock, trodden and licked bare of vegetation for ages by the countless passing buffalo; blackened by rain and sun; only the more desolate for a few dwarfish cedars and other timber scant and dreary to the eye. Encircling this hill in somewhat the shape of a horseshoe, a deep ravine heavily wooded and rank with grass and underbrush. The Kentuckians, disorderly foot and horse, rushing in foolhardiness ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... backward, cold, bitter, inhospitable, and Jadwin began to suspect that the wheat crop of his native country, that for so long had been generous, and of excellent quality, was now to prove—it seemed quite possible—scant and of poor condition. He began to watch the weather, and to keep an eye upon the reports from the little county seats and "centres" in the winter wheat States. These, in part, seemed ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... Flanders. He at once set about earning a little money to assist him in the journey. Again he painted a great number of saints and bright landscapes on small squares of linen, and sold them to eager customers. Thus he provided himself with scant means for the journey. He placed his sister in the care of a relative, and then started off afoot across the Sierras to Madrid, without having told anyone of his intentions. His little stock of money was soon exhausted, ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor

... were confined, in the main, to the wilder spirits, though it may well be that occasionally peaceable persons were sucked into the vortex by the accident of their being abroad at the time, and on the scene of the affray, where their pacific character would receive scant consideration from the angry combatants. Esprit de corps also was a powerful incentive to action, and one from which even Masters were not exempt. To this must be added that the course of study itself seemed expressly devised to foster the belligerent ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... this scant and uncertain evidence, Ales Hrdlicka, of the Smithsonian Institution, speaking of a single locality, says, "Near Lyons, France, the skeletons of 200,000 prehistoric horses are scattered. In one ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... and river, and thought she was bidding it good-bye forever. She went toward her closet and put out her hand to choose what she would take with her, and her heart sank. There hung the faded old ginghams short and scant, and scorned but yesterday, yet her heart wildly clung to them. Almost would she have put one on and gone back to her happy care-free school life. The thought of the new life frightened her. She must ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... intend to do it. It is rather unfortunate, Mr Singleton, that you should have chosen this particular period for your visit to Cuba, for I may tell you—if you don't happen to know it already—that foreigners of all kinds, and particularly Americans and English, are looked upon with scant favour by the Spaniards just now, as the latter suspect them of favouring the aspirations of the Cubans toward independence. And that reminds me that the Spaniards somehow got hold of the notion that ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... in mind. It explains the omission of many details which some text-books on the same subject would be sure to include. To make a manual complete and self-sufficing is precisely what I have not intended. The book is designed to be suggestive and stimulating, to leave the reader with scant information on some points, to make him (as Mr. Samuel Weller says) "vish there wos more," and to show him how to go on by himself. I am well aware that, in making an experiment in this somewhat new ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... of the Peninsula received scant consideration at the Congress. Greece, as we have seen, had recalled her troops from Thessaly on the understanding that her claims should be duly considered at the general peace. She now pressed those claims; but, apart from initial encouragement given ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... just giving some advice to a poor devil who accosted me for alms, Miss Wallen," he said, lamely, "but I seem to have driven him off. My speeches are not universally well received, as you probably know." But Jennie was in no mood for conversation. With but scant recognition, she pushed ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... all, and that the child so neglected and so unkindly treated by her had some powerful friend in the background? It would not be very pleasant if there should be such a friend, and he or she should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, the scant food, the hard work. She felt queer indeed and uncertain, and she gave ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... blind us to this truth. Take, for example, thrift. It is not possible to expect that large class of workers who depend upon irregular earnings of less than 18s. a week to set by anything for a rainy day. The essence of thrift is regularity, and regularity is to them impossible. Even supposing their scant wage was regular, it is questionable whether they would be justified in stinting the bodily necessities of their families by setting aside a portion which could not in the long run suffice to provide even a bare maintenance for old age or disablement. To say this is not to impugn ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... northern Arizona there are great forests of pine and plenty of shade. But few cattle range there in comparison to the large numbers that graze on the lower levels further south. What little tree growth there is on the desert is stunted and supplies but scant shade. In the canons some large cottonwood, sycamore and walnut trees can be found; upon the foot hills the live oak and still higher up the mountain the pine. Cattle always seek the shade and if there are no trees they will ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... pared as to be transparent. Boil this peel half an hour in water, then shred it into fine even strips half an inch long, and not thicker than broom straw. Stew this shredded peel another half-hour in a gill of stock, with a scant teaspoonful of sugar; then add it to the sauce, with half a saltspoonful of salt, ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... dialect, it was not so noticeable as in the speech of most southern Negroes. A scant fringe of kinky gray hair framed his almost bald head, and he was dressed in his Sunday-best clothes; a gray suit, white shirt, and black shoes, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... supported the Women's Typographical Union. Her Revolution, they claimed, was printed at less than union rates in a "rat office" and her explanation was not satisfactory. That it was printed on contract outside her office was no answer to satisfy union men who could not realize on what a scant margin her paper operated or how gladly she would have set up a union shop had ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... his hand on Fleetfoot's head. "Thou hast no friend in Humphrey," he said in a low tone as he looked into the dog's eyes. Then, while Humphrey baked the oatmeal cake in the coals, Hugo gave the dog as liberal a supper as he could from their scant supply. ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... where he had spoken his inaugural on March 4, 1865, Mr. Lincoln came back to the White House with less than five weeks of life before him; yet for those scant weeks most men would have gladly exchanged their full lifetimes. To the nation they came fraught with all the intoxicating triumph of victory; but upon the President they laid the vast responsibility of rightly ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... with perhaps more volubility than was required, covered up the traces of her design, Miss Lavender cast about how to commence the second and more hopeless attack. It was but scant intelligence which she had gained, but in that direction she dared not venture further. What she now proposed to do required more ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... course, with a hundred fold pertinence to the case of Ireland. Between the enactment of the first Penal Laws and the date of Roman Catholic Emancipation, Irish Roman Catholics were, to put it mildly, afforded scant opportunity, in their own country, of developing economic virtues or achieving industrial success. Ruthlessly deprived of education, are they to be blamed if they did not use the newly acquired facilities to the best advantage? With their religion looked on as the badge ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... one Samuel Benedict Carpzov, who lived at Wittenberg, wrote several dissertations, and was accounted the Chrysostom of his age (1565-1624). Rdiger in Part IX. of his work wrote the biography of this learned man, suppressing his good qualities and ascribing to him many bad ones, and did scant justice to the memory of so able a theologian. This so enraged the sons and other relations of the great man that they accused Rdiger of slander before the ecclesiastical court, and the luckless author was ordered to be beaten with rods, and to withdraw all the calumnies he had uttered against ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... 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

... balsam are blunt or rounded at the ends and some of them are even dented or notched in place of being sharp-pointed. Each spine or leaf is a scant one inch in length and very flat; the upper part is grooved and of a dark bluish-green color. The under-side is much lighter, often almost silvery white. The balsam blossoms in April or May, and the fruit or cones stand upright on the branches. These vary ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... himself, and he dreamt of a pair of blue eyes, rhymed them with "skies," joined "love" with "dove," "sweet" with "fleet," "rosy" with "posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for images and conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms of pretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance and curvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy, cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled his wandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... 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

... she had sought to retain him near her; and finally, failing in her endeavor, she had begun to feel loathing and disgust. He was now two-and-forty, he drank too much, he ate too much, he smoked too much. He was growing corpulent and scant of breath, with hanging lips and heavy eyelids; he no longer took care of his person as formerly, but went about slipshod, and indulged in the coarsest pleasantries. But it was more particularly away from his home that he sank into degradation, indulging in ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... animals I could examine them leisurely, for they did not move. Their skins were thick and rugged, of a yellowish tint, approaching to red; their hair was short and scant. Some of them were four yards and a quarter long. Quieter and less timid than their cousins of the north, they did not, like them, place sentinels round the outskirts of their encampment. After examining this city of morses, I began to think of returning. It was eleven ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... though it was none of his business, asking Tess to accompany him. The evening, though sunless, had been warm and muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with her milking-hood only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not dressed for a drive. She therefore replied by glancing over her scant habiliments; but Clare gently urged her. She assented by relinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to take home, and mounted the spring-waggon ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... cultivation of Shakespeare's peculiar genius, circumstances were almost wholly propitious. His very poverty was his stimulus. Even that school education of his, which is made by misunderstanding to appear so scant and pitiful, was, I doubt not, better adapted to his career than if he had been filled with all the learning of Verulam or Ben Jonson. But of ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... of Baal, They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, For ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... they'll fix 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

... contradicted most passengers if he talked to them for long. He was a man with strong opinions, and he regarded tolerance as mere weakness. Moreover, Cranze's chronic soaking nauseated him. But at the same time, if his civility was scant, Cranze never lugged out the foolish weapon in his presence. There was a something in the shipmaster's eye which daunted him. The utmost height to which his resentment could reach with Captain Kettle was a folding of the arms and a scowl which was intended to be majestic, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... room, built to utilize a scant, triangular space between two big warehouses, only a few feet wide at the front and no width at all at the rear. Its ceiling was also its roof and from it dangled whatever could be hung thus, while the remaining bits of furniture swung from ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... one to the other down shallow rapids. At the Height of Land, and for some miles beyond, the country is flat and boggy, and sparsely wooded with tamarack and spruce, many of the tall, slender tops of the former being bent completely over by the storms. The spruce was small and scant, increasing in size and quantity as we descended from the highest levels, but nowhere on the northern slope attaining the size reached in ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately passed; names, now well known, but of modern date; and often exclamations of exultation or woe, of victory or defeat, were traced on their thin scant pages. This was certainly the Sibyl's Cave; not indeed exactly as Virgil describes it, but the whole of this land had been so convulsed by earthquake and volcano, that the change was not wonderful, though the traces of ruin were effaced by time; and we probably owed the preservation ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... has happened that an animal would have been overlooked or passed by with scant notice, to be forgotten, perhaps, but for some singular action or habit which has instantly given it a strange importance, and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... bellowed Mr. Trinkle, "that no young man disappears who isn't a physical Adonis, do you? No thin-shanked, stoop-shouldered, scant-haired highbrow has yet vanished. You notice that, don't you, Sayre? Open your mouth and speak! Say anything! Say pip! if ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... who might have given them food, were now their enemies. They indeed now and again brought scant supplies of fish to the starving men. But they demanded so much for it that soon the colonists were bare of everything they had possessed. They bartered the very shirts from their backs for food. And if they complained of the heavy price the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... Douglas, Trutch, Sir Mathew Begbie, Mr. Dunsmuir, and a few others, the order, obedience to the law, and progress of the country must be mainly attributed. But no stone marks the services of Governor Dallas; no honour was offered him by our Government at home; and he received scant reward from the Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company sitting in London. Surely those who have profited by his self-denying labours might consider whether his great services should be allowed to fall into oblivion for want of some adequate ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... public, therefore, in the hope that they may suggest a method, add a little to the scant supply of material for children's sermons, and serve to interest ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... opened, and, with scant ceremony, Ellerey was dragged by his feet across the floor into a room. The door was shut again, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... CREAM SAUCE.—Cook the macaroni as directed in the proceeding, and serve with a cream sauce prepared by heating a scant pint of rich milk to boiling, in a double boiler. When boiling, add a heaping tablespoonful of flour, rubbed smoothed in a little milk and one fourth teaspoonful of salt. If desired, the sauce may be flavored by steeping in the milk before thickening for ten or fifteen ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... matter with her," said Gwen; "'tis lying down she is, a good deal,—miladi is a bit lazy, I think," and with this scant information he ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... bottom of which it turned along the line of High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at the back of more ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... yew and fir growing about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with scant meagre fields on either side—fields that seemed to be on the point of drifting into marsh land—past the houses of the poor people, I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... describes Hamlet as 'fat, and scant of breath.' Here is Montaigne's description of himself (Essai II. 27):—'J'ay, au demourant, la taille forte et ramassee; le visage non pas gras, mais plein, la complexion entre le jovial et le melancholique, moyennement sanguine et chaude.' Florio's translation, ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... not take, after a month's siege under the best of Siege-Captains; Ziegenhayn still less under one of the worst. Provisions, ammunitions, were not to be had by force of wagonry: scant food for soldiers, doubly scant the food of Sieges;"—"the road from Beverungen [where the Weser-boats have to stop, which is 30 miles from Cassel, perhaps 60 from Ziegenhayn, and perhaps 100 from the outmost or southern-most of Ferdinand's parties] is paved with dead horses," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... same convoy that in some secure roadstead drop anchor within hail of each other. I could willingly have lingered on the top of the Scuir until after sunset; but the minister, who, ever and anon, during the day, had been conning over some notes jotted on a paper of wonderfully scant dimensions, reminded me that this was the evening of his week-day discourse, and that we were more than a particularly rough mile from the place of meeting, and within, half an hour of the time. I took one last look of the scene ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... She fears even these late successes; it were best to veil their heads. The strong as such had ever been against her and hers. The father came again; noted the boy's growth. Manliest of men, like Hercules in his cloak of lion's skin, he has after all but scant liking, feels, through a certain meanness of soul, scorn for the finer likeness of himself. Might this creature of an already vanishing world, who for all his hard rearing had a manifest distinction of character, one day become his rival, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... Though Crabbe showed scant sympathy with the delicate sensibilities of girls who hung enraptured over the high-pitched heroics and miraculous escapes of Clementina and her kindred, he found pleasure in a robuster school of romance—the adventures of mighty Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, and Robin Hood, as set forth ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... He paid her scant attention and continued looking at Terry. "On the contrary." He spoke with unruffled urbanity. "It was General Braithwaite—Steely Jack as he was nicknamed in the Army. He never lost an inch of trench, so they say. Like your own first ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... But, scant though my memories are of the moments there, very full and warm in me is the whole fused memory of the two dear old men that lived there. I wish I had Watts-Dunton's sure faith in meetings beyond the grave. I am glad I do not disbelieve that people may ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... hurried arrangements were at last completed, and Mr. Mulrady and Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carrying their scant luggage, were on their way to the high road to meet the up stage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into his daughter's face. He had looked forward to those few moments to enjoy the freshness and naivete of Mamie's youthful delight and enthusiasm as ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... so; but 't is a scant covering for the truth. For have I never heard you sing? When I was a little girl, my brothers and I were sent to some springs in the mountains. While we were there, one day a party of people came on horseback. They were very gay, and one of them sang. It has come back to me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... the sea rises, and the great concave of night sky flattens and presses down upon the driven ship, and men strive to escape doom and yet care not, and work till they are blind, and then drop down into the scant shelter of the deck, where the icy wind seems warm after the strife and bellowing up aloft. Heroes? To be sure we were heroes. What is being shot at a mile off, or a hundred yards off, to being shot at ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... every wind that an incessant 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 tops are ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... good graces, but they have no money, and are obliged to make a good show.—Again, you know the difficulties of the political situation. The aristocracy has to be rehabilitated in the face of a very strong force of the third estate. The King's idea—and France does him scant justice—is to create a peerage as a national institution analogous to the English peerage. To realize this grand idea we need years—and millions.—Noblesse oblige. The Duc de Navarreins, who is, as you know, first gentleman of the Bedchamber to the King, does not ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to observe— which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times—the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... head of armor / many a warrior good. They sate them on the corses, / that round them in the blood Of wounds themselves had dealt them, / prostrate weltering lay. Now to his guests so lofty / scant ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... four months, 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



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



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