Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Scant   /skænt/   Listen
Scant

verb
(past & past part. scanted; pres. part. scanting)
1.
Work hastily or carelessly; deal with inadequately and superficially.  Synonym: skimp.
2.
Limit in quality or quantity.  Synonym: skimp.
3.
Supply sparingly and with restricted quantities.  Synonyms: skimp, stint.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'Stand!' 'Give fire!'" etc., which forced the prelate to flee to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was denied him at home.[24] Now, however, when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came out in his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles' Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it spoken, they were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed for the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival of the later members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainly old moth, racking his scant English for complimentary speeches. These were received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and by Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk than usual that evening, leaving him ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... towards her, much elated. Joe again cleared his throat tentatively, but Margaret ruthlessly corked the bottle, and, assuming her usual frosty air, remarked with somewhat scant politeness that it was time for her to be setting about her business, and there was no need for other ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... and distracted thoughts. Suddenly, she observed Velmont approaching her. She would have avoided him, but the balustrade that surrounded the terrace cut off her retreat. She was cornered. She could not move. A gleam of sunshine, passing through the scant foliage of a bamboo, lighted up her beautiful golden hair. Some one spoke to ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... was a strange habitation. Formerly merely the gateway to the Castle, which had once reared its proud head upon the crest of the hill to the westward, it had but scant accommodation for a family—one living room below, flanked on one side by the kitchen, and on the other by the vaulted chamber, once possibly a guardroom, but so bitterly cold and damp now that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... made from the drawings, and it becomes a question as to whether their dimensions should be the forged or the finished ones. If they are the forged, they may cause trouble, because a forging may have a scant place that it is difficult for the blacksmith to bring up to the size of the template, and he is in doubt whether there is enough metal in the scant place to allow the job to clean up. It is better, therefore, to make them to finished sizes, so that he can see at once if ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... tendencies of her Bishops, and spared the life even of such a wretch as Bonner. It is possible that she believed in transubstantiation. It is certain that she objected to the marriage of the clergy, and showed scant courtesy to the wife of her own favourite Archbishop Parker. Nor would she suffer the Bishops, except as Peers, to meddle in affairs of State. A magnificent princess, every inch a queen, she could not forget that the English people had saved her life ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... mind I wandered out for a quiet place, and found it in a desolate green to the north of the city, near a huge, old red-brick church like a barn. A deep shadow beneath it invited me in spite of the scant and dusty grass, and in this country no one disturbs the wanderer. There, lying down, I slept ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... assault. Convoys and companies passed between their bastions. Jeanne was introduced into the town with a strong relieving army. She brought flocks of oxen, sheep, and pigs. The townsfolk believed her to be an angel of the Lord. Meanwhile the men and the money of the besiegers were waxing scant. They had lost all their horses. Far from being in a position to attempt a new attack, they were not likely to be able to hold out long in their bastions. At the end of April there were four thousand English before Orleans and perhaps ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... not greatly pleased when Hugo civilly declined an invitation to have dinner with her ma and pa. The young man was disappointing. He spoke cheerfully and pleasantly but appeared to take scant notice of her new ribbon, to pay little heed to her ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... bless my soul, sir, she's been thinking of nothing else for the past two or three days but the coming of the postman, expecting a letter from you, not considering that you didn't know where to address her, or that it was rather scant time for a letter to come from La Guayra, where Captain Stearns would take you if he succeeded ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... aquiline nose. She was a tall, angular, high-shouldered, and flat-chested woman, dark from exposure to wind, sun, and rain, her hair brown in the neck, but many shades lighter on the crown of her head. Her eyes were of an expressionless gray. A brown calico of scant pattern clung in lank folds to her thin and ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... deprived us of three barrels of pork, and half-starved us through the winter. That winter of '36, how heavily it wore away! The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity of animal food rendered us all weak, and the children suffered much from ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... monsoon; cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... stepping openly into the position of owner of Cloom might have made. Neither, his child's true instinct told him, was it affection suddenly awakened in her. He cast about vainly for what it might mean. Presently he went into the washhouse, where Katie and another woman were busy; they took scant notice of him, but went on discussing the fact that Archelaus had not been home to bed all night, had not long come in, and gone upstairs, where he still was, snoring for all to hear. Ishmael was not altogether ignorant, and allusions were bandied ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... he trudged along the road. It was a scant three miles to town, and he would rather walk that short distance than to be bothered with a horse. When he took Old Nig, he had to keep to the main-traveled road straight into town, then tie him to a post—and worry about ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... impression upon her heart Mr. Trueworth alone succeeds, but her levity and her disregard of appearances force him to think her unworthy of his attentions. Meanwhile her guardian's wife, Lady Mellasin, has been turned out of the house for an egregious infidelity, and Betsy is left to her own scant discretion. After somewhat annoying her brothers by receiving men at her lodgings, she elects under family pressure to marry a Mr. Munden, who quickly shows himself all that a husband should not be. Eventually she has to abandon him, but demonstrates her wifely devotion by ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... it on a level with Amadis, and averring that he knew "no romance and no epic in which suspense is so successfully kept up." Of their successors, the long line of sons, grandsons and nephews, each more valiant and puissant than the last, it must be said that they are as scant of beauty as of grace. In order to keep up the interest of their readers, the authors of the Primaleons and the Polindos—the Florisels and the Florisandos—were compelled to put in wonders on an ascending ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... afterwards managed to console herself by marrying an Earl of Sutherland and a Lord Ogilvy of Boyne. The tragedy of the death of 'Alexander our King,' and the unnumbered woes that came in its train, was, as we know, celebrated in rhymes of which some scant salvage has come down to us; and the feats of William Wallace and the victories of the Bruce were rewarded by the maidens singing and the harpers harping in their praise. This we learn from a surer source than the ballads of the Wallace and Bruce Cycle that ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... a walk 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 ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... gay. Beside those tents Stood the sweet-breathing, mournful, slow-eyed kine With hazel-shielded horns, and gave their milk Gravely to merry maidens. Low the sun Had fallen, when, Patrick near the summit now, There burst on him a wandering troop, wild-eyed, With scant and quaint array. O'er sunburnt brows They wore sere wreaths; their piebald vests were stained, And lean their looks, and sad: some piped, some sang, Some tossed the juggler's ball. "From far we came," They cried; "we faint with hunger; give ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... remember that they live under most trying conditions of climate and environment. During several months of the year everything is dried up and parched. The brilliant sun of the tropics, burning mercilessly through the rarefied air, causes the scant vegetation to wither. Then come torrential rains. I shall never forget my first experience on Lake Titicaca, when the steamer encountered a rain squall. The resulting deluge actually came through the decks. Needless to say, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... the senatorship, however, is exhibited more fully in the vote for the members of the lower house of the State legislature.. The avowed Douglas candidates polled over 174,000, while the Lincoln men received something over 190,000. Administration candidates received a scant vote of less than 2,000. Notwithstanding this popular majority, the Republicans secured only thirty-five seats, while the Democratic minority secured forty. Out of fifteen contested senatorial seats, the Democrats won eight with a total of ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams Glimmers a limpid labyrinth of dreams;"*6* and of the heavens reflected in the marsh waters: "Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy, — The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie."*7* Later, as the ebb-tide flows from marsh to sea, we are parenthetically treated to these two lines: "Run home, little streams, With your lapfuls of stars and dreams."*8* ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... was positive, certain. In the chasm his cry had been tempered with doubt—a questioning hope, something that was so almost human that McTaggart had shivered on the trail. But Baree knew what lay in that freshly dug snow-covered grave. A scant three feet of earth could not hide its secret from him. There was death—definite and unequivocal. But for Nepeese he was still hoping ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... with the basal scar smaller than the lower end of the nut. A certain amount of gray down is on the surface. This down may be confined to a small area about the apex or it may cover much of the upper end of the nut, and it may be thick, thin, or scant. The nut may have good cleaning quality, meaning that the kernel and its pellicle are easily separated. Cleaning quality may be good from the time the nut falls from the tree or it may become so only after ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... of pioneers the rights of the Indians received scant consideration. Hardy and well-armed Virginians and Kentuckians broke across treaty boundaries and possessed themselves of fertile lands to which they had no valid claim. White hunters trespassed far and wide on ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... a chair close beside her. Bacon, with scant regard for elegance, seated himself on the edge of the table ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... scant instant Mr. Grimm's eyes rested on a young woman who sat a dozen feet away, talking, in playful animation, with an undersecretary of the British embassy—a young woman severely gowned in some glistening stuff which fell away sheerly from her splendid bare shoulders. She ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... browns and greens of the solitary moorland, at the black rocks jutting out here and there from the scant grass, at the silent and gloomy hills and the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... realize that the voice that first sung it was that of the irritable little poet who found some of his scant comfort in the grand words and phrases and ideas of our ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... head through the aperture, and rubbed her nose against my shoulder like a dog. I am not ashamed to say that I put both my arms around her neck, and, burying my face in her silken mane, kissed her again and again. Wounded, weak, and away from home, with only strangers to wait upon me, and scant service at that, the affection of this lovely creature for me, so tender and touching, seemed almost human, and my heart went out to her beyond any power of expression, as to the only being, of all the thousands around me, who thought ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... beaten), one cup sweet milk, one half cup vinegar (scant) one teaspoon mixed mustard, one tablespoon butter (melted). Pepper and salt to taste, mix thoroughly. Set in kettle of boiling water and stir till it thickens, (about four minutes), when ready to use it add ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... tested by musicians who are said to have been enthusiastic over the success of their experiments. Several years ago a piano was lowered into the cave for use on a special occasion, and still occupies a position on the dancing platform, where it will probably remain indefinitely under the scant protection of a ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... in a single garment a little girl innocently exposes more of her body than meets with her modest mother's approval. The scolding is full and positive. Little Miss Apache, sitting in the middle of the blanket with her knees drawn to her chin and with scant skirt now tucked carefully about her feet, looks up with roguish smile, then down at her wiggling ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... young," 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, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... it is used to give, for medicine, chastity and everything else that pertaineth to the natural way of living of an honest friar. Yet they persuade themselves that others know not that,—let alone the scant and sober living,—long vigils, praying and discipline should make men pale and mortified and that neither St. Dominic nor St. Francis, far from having four gowns for one, clad themselves in cloth dyed in grain nor in other fine stuffs, but in garments ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Philadelphia. Miss Alice Keane called at Thankful Rest on her pony, one morning, to ask Tom and Lucy to a Christmas-eve gathering. The invitation was curtly declined by Miss Hepsy, and she was dismissed with such scant courtesy that she departed ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... tipped the scales at a scant one hundred and thirty pounds; now his sagging body was a load in excess of seven hundredweight. With that load upon him, and glorying in the effort it cost, Luke staggered on toward the triple red glow, which, even in the blinding whiteness of the snowfall, ...
— Vulcan's Workshop • Harl Vincent

... &c (decrease) 36; (contract) 195. Adj. small, little; diminutive &c (small in size) 193; minute; fine; inconsiderable, paltry &c (unimportant) 643; faint &c (weak) 160; slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited; meager &c (insufficient) 640; sparing; few &c 103; low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes; below par, under par, below the mark; at a low ebb; halfway; moderate, modest; tender, subtle. inappreciable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

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

... understood it well enough. The return air, loaded with gas, had ignited at the furnace, and the result was that forty dead and wounded men were carried up the shaft, to be recognized, when they were recognizable, by mothers, and wives, and children, who depended upon them for their scant food." ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... was probably the deposition of Peter. She would have liked to place him under guard in some distant palace. But while the matter was still under discussion she was awakened early one morning by Alexis Orloff. He grasped her arm with scant ceremony. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... yielding to a vulgar envy of richer women's clothes and jewels. Her dress, with which she had been pleased, looked ordinary beside the creations of great Parisian ateliers, and the few old paste ornaments which were the only jewels she possessed, charming as they were, seemed dim and scant among the crowns and constellations of diamonds that surrounded her. Her pride rebelled against this envy, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... mistake after 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

... Bristol with the "Faerie Queen." From that moment the stream of English poetry has flowed on without a break. There have been times, as in the years which immediately followed, when England has "become a nest of singing birds"; there have been times when song was scant and poor; but there never has been a time when England was ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

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

... at the counter, or seated at numerous small tables, men were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying but scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion, save when some well known air was played, when all would join in a boisterous chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door which led into a room behind. Here there was comparative ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... Andrew Halloran still swung at anchor alone at the foot of the cliff. Whenever the artist broached the subject of a new boat, Uncle William turned it aside with a jest and trotted off to his clam-basket. The artist brooded in silence over his indebtedness and the scant chance of making it good. He got out canvas and brushes and began to paint, urged by a vague sense that it might bring in something, some time. When he saw that Uncle William was pleased, he kept on. The work took his mind off himself, and he grew strong ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

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

... proportion, clearness, and order; a reckless readiness to say everything that is in the writer's mind, without considering whether it is appropriate or not; a confusion of English and classical grammar, and occasionally a very scant attention even to rules which the classical grammars indicate yet more sternly than the vernacular. But as a rule he is distinguished for exactly the opposite of all these things. Much less modern than Cowley, but still of a chaster ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... kissed Geraldine, and helped her down that she might be with Edgar, who was to return with the cousin, whispering to her by the way that it had been very beautiful. It was a day of bright sunshine, high wind, and scant sparkling feathery stars of snow, that sat for a moment shining in their pure perfectness of regularity on the black, and then vanished. 'So like himself,' Sister ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... borne 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 direction, nothing is easier than to fall into errors of judgment. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... in her grief and the injured sense of her impotence, she cried long, gently, and monotonously, pouring out all the pain of her wounded heart in her sobs. And before her, like an irremovable stain, hung that yellow face with the scant mustache, and the squinting eyes staring at her with malicious pleasure. Resentment and bitterness were winding themselves about her breast like black threads on a spool; resentment and bitterness toward those who tear a son ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

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

... it is gret drede for to 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 thing the wytt of other naciouns. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... made up the gathering, with a scant sprinkling of farmers and others unclassified. A big, ill-dressed fellow was repeating the tale of scandal for the benefit of a newcomer; the narrative moving jerkily over ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... house told a far different tale,—the shabby furniture, the dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... envy of mankind has bestowed the appellation 'snub,' and it was very much turned up at the end, as with a lofty scorn. Upon the upper lip of this young gentleman were tokens of a sandy down; so very, very smooth and scant, that, though encouraged to the utmost, it looked more like a recent trace of gingerbread than the fair promise of a moustache; and this conjecture, his apparently tender age went far to strengthen. He was intent upon his work. Every time he snapped the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... speeches which are printed in the Congressional Record have not been delivered; but they are intended for circulation among the constituents of representatives, and for use as campaign documents. Many of the speeches that are actually delivered receive scant attention; the lack of interest in them is made evident by the noise and confusion that very often prevail during sessions ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... sail, for the past fortnight of "carrying on" had been a distinctly anxious time for me; moreover it was a pleasant change to find myself on the comparatively spacious deck of the Eros, and once more surrounded by the familiar faces of my former shipmates. There was scant time, however, for the interchange of greetings, for Captain Perry was in a perfect fever of anxiety to complete his arrangements, and I was no sooner through the gangway than he hustled me off to his handsome and delightfully cool cabin under ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... all women except my mother, and, Catholic as he was, had scant respect for the mendicant orders, hated this dream, hated to be reminded of it, hated the name which he had been persuaded into giving me, and, as a consequence, I believe, never loved me. For unnumbered generations of our family we had been Antonys, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... country dweller leased a house, with option to buy, in a very good neighborhood. House, location, and surroundings exactly pleased and it was a scant ten minutes from the station on a good road. The school system was well rated but the graded school for this section drew a majority of its pupils from a textile mill settlement two or three miles away. The ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

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

... Pacific Coast eternal vigilance alone can save us from a flood of Asiaticism, with its weak womanhood, its men of scant chivalry, its polluting vices and its brothel slavery. Bubonic plague in San Francisco and Seattle was alarming. Mongolian brothel slavery, the Black Death in morals, is ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... Tories of Cartagena, and their possessions fell, one after another, into the hands of the successful revolutionists, or were seized by former slaves, Don Ignacio found it difficult to meet his royal master's demands. The fickle King, already childish to the verge of imbecility, gave scant thanks in return for the Rincon loyalty, and when at last, stripped of his fortune, deserted by all but the few Tory families who had the courage to remain in Cartagena until the close of the war, Don Ignacio received with sinking heart the news of the battle ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... again. Now and then he considered the possibility of its having been his own animal, somehow freed of the rope and frightened by the same thing that had frightened him. But when with the first light he went outside, his horse, securely hobbled, was grazing on the scant pasture not ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... surely therefore are out of the province of this contemporary biography. Lady Kew was indignant with her daughter (there were some moments when any conduct of her friends did not meet her ladyship's approbation) even for the scant civility with which Lady Anne had received the Duchess's advances. "Leave a card upon her!—yes, send a card by one of your footmen; but go in to see her—because she was at the window and saw you drive up.—Are you mad, Anne? That was the very reason you should not have ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of small animosities into burning hatreds. And it all, with Hudson's people, must have been rougher and fiercer and deadlier than it was with Greely's people: because Hudson's crew was of a time when sea-men, for cause, were called sea-wolves; while Greely's crew was the better (yet exhibited scant evidence of it) by an additional two centuries and a half of civilization, and was made up (though with little to show for it) of ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... and gunnes, and bowemen bold, This noble Howard is gone to the sea; With a valyant heart and a pleasant cheare, Out at Thames mouth sayled he. And days he scant had sayled three, Upon the 'voyage,' he tooke in hand, But there he mett with a noble shipp, And stoutely made itt ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... of Mr. Reitz's eloquent impeachment of the conduct of Great Britain in South Africa is devoted to a delineation of what he calls Capitalistic Jingoism. It is probable that a great many who will read with scant sympathy his narrative of the grievances of his countrymen in the earlier part, of the century will revel in the invective which he hurls against Mr. Rhodes and the Capitalists of the Rand. If happier times return to South Africa, Mr. Reitz may yet find the mistake ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... young soldier, friend," said Burley, "and scant well learned in thy trade, or thou wouldst know that the bearer of a flag of truce cannot treat with the army but through their officers; and that if he presume to do otherwise, he forfeits his ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 ere we commenced ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... him helpless . . . the thought presented itself that she would have another thing to answer for if one of the many men with such cause to hate him should come upon him thus. Well, that was but one of the more remote chances she must take. There was scant enough likelihood that any one should come here before she could race into Las ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... was Paris; the life of Paris that of the nation; and the life of the nation that of the people. This even the Parisians of to-day will tell you. It is scant acknowledgment of the provinces to be sure, but what would you? The French capital is much more the capital of France than London is of England, or Washington of America—leaving politics out of ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

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

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

... the Protestant monarchs of England ever since, and is now inscribed on our coinage. Luther, several of whose manuscripts are in the Library, published a vigorous reply, in which he treated his royal opponent with scant ceremony. The author himself had no scruple in setting it aside when his personal passions were aroused. And Rome has put this inconsistent book beside the letters to Anne Boleyn, as it were in the pillory here for the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... seest, though courtly pleasures want, Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant: For the soul-ravishing, delicious sound Of instrumental music we have found The winged quiristers with divers notes Sent from their quaint recording[201] pretty throats, On every branch that compasseth our bow'r, Without command contenting us each hour. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... enchanters and enchantments can have such power in it as to have changed my master's right senses into a craze so full of absurdity! O senor, senor, for God's sake, consider yourself, have a care for your honour, and give no credit to this silly stuff that has left you scant and short of wits." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... bring up provisions from the village, was driving in his sleigh steadily along the road, when the sharp chorus of the hounds aroused him. A minute after, the lame scoundrel limped across the turnpike, scant thirty yards before him. Alas! Tom had but his double-barrel, one loaded with buck shot, the other merely prepared for partridge—he blazed away, however, but in vain! Out came ten couple on his track, hard after him; and old Tom, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... South-Eastern Sinai-land end, appears a large white blot, apparently supporting a block, built, like a bastion, upon a tall hill of porphyritic trap. We called this remnant of material harder than the rest, Burj el-Dahab—"the Tower Hill of Dahab." I have been minute in describing the Golden Harbour: scant justice has been done to it by the Hydrographic Chart, and it will prove valuable when the Makna' mines are opened. Ahmed Kaptn vainly attempted soundings—he was too ill to work. Wellsted's identification of the site with Ezion-geber (ii. ix.), and the reef with ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... allegiance. Although Richard, who owned them, took not the smallest care of them and serenely passed them over to some one else to be ministered unto, nevertheless they apparently sensed the arrangement was one of convenience and returned scant gratitude for what was done for them. They were polite, tolerant, but never whole-heartedly cordial. Dick was their master and they ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... that the labouring artisan is driven to the lowest possible rate of wages, which is calculated simply upon the price of the quartern loaf. In order to work he must live. That is a fact which the tyrants of the spinneries do not overlook, but they take care that the livelihood shall be as scant as possible. The labourer is desired to work for his daily bread, to which the wages are made to correspond, and, of course, the cheaper bread is, the greater are the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

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

... his knowledge of English was scant, the Princess gave him the story she herself had heard. Great was his horror on learning that when last he came—in September—and left the usual provisions, the Duc de Fontrevault had been in his grave ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... and in the sum total at least hold their own. It is one advantage of being well distributed that opportunities increase. In that an individual is an unsalaried editor, extensive or expensive trips are unthinkable; that his calling affords necessities but a scant allowance of luxuries, leaves recreation in the Sierras out of the question; but that by the accidents of politics he happens to be a supervisor, certain privileges, disguised attractively as duties, prove ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... our due course to fetch the Barbary coast being S.E. by E. we were unable to keep it by reason of the wind being scant, but lay as near it as we could, running that day and night 25 leagues. The 9th we ran 30 leagues; the 10th 25; and 11th, 24 leagues. The 12th we saw a sail under our lee, which we thought to be a fishing bark, and stood down to speak with her; but in an hour ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... say that during the almost lifetime I passed at Chatham there were only a scant half dozen Americans who came down to keep me company. One, Stoneman by name, interested me. He was a man of great nerve and quick apprehension, and very truthful, therefore I found his stories of his adventures most interesting, besides the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... be a dandy place to sleep," he thought, for it was blowing up cold and he had but scant equipment. ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... that tried men's souls," a wretch, who, in the emphatic language of General Washington, spoke in his presence and hearing, "wanted but a price and an opportunity to play us false as Arnold!" who, while his fellow soldiers were stinted of food and scant of clothing, was in actual treaty with the British Commissioners, to betray the American Army, and their Commander-in-Chief, and their cause, and their Country, to Great Britain, for the consideration of ten thousand pounds sterling, a judicial ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... 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 graceful wave ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... accede to the request of the leader of our caravan, a clever and resourceful, but to my mind untrustworthy Abati of the name of Shadrach, and camp in Zeu for a week or so to rest and feed our camels, which had wasted almost to nothing on the scant ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... that they should not become dwellers on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition, there were few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was more depressed, those who were fortunate enough to obtain the scant remuneration, had, in addition to their toil, to endure each morn and even a weary journey before they could reach the scene of their labour, or return to the squalid hovel which profaned the name of home. To that home, over which Malaria hovered, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

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

... &c 201. impalpable, intangible, evanescent, imperceptible, invisible, inappreciable, insignificant, inconsiderable, trivial; infinitesimal, homoeopathic^; atomic, subatomic, corpuscular, molecular; rudimentary, rudimental; embryonic, vestigial. weazen^, scant, scraggy, scrubby; thin &c (narrow) 203; granular &c (powdery) 330; shrunk &c 195; brevipennate^. Adv. in a small compass, in a nutshell; on a small ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... hot, raised octagon platform, also of marble, and in the recesses of the sides were marble vases, and tanks, with taps for hot and cold water, and channels in the floor to carry off the suds. Two savage, unearthly boys, their heads all shaved, with the exception of a tuft on the top, and in their scant costume of a towel only, looking more like wild Indians than Turks, now seized hold of me, and forcing me back upon the hot marble floor commenced a dreadful series of tortures, such as I had only ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

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

... his head from the skylight to glance over the rail, and then replaced it again to answer, "A bare five, sir, I should say; the wind seems to be growing more scant. Shall ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... them all! and wherefore! for the gain Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet, Searching for worm or weevil after rain! Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet As are the songs these uninvited guests, Sing at ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... wilderness with axe and flame; And none but he 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 good sense, To cease from getting, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... Lane with Garrick and Mrs. Siddons. The little town kindly smiled upon the lively efforts of the Presbyterian deacon's son; and its welcome of his small essays, the provincial echo of the famous Queen Anne's men in London, is a touching revelation of our scant and spare native literary talent. The essays are forgotten now, but they were enough to bring Charles Brockden Brown to find the young author, and to tempt him, but in vain, to write for The Literary Magazine and American Register, which the novelist ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... lots Of people follow Dr. Watts, The sluggard, when his means are scant, Should seek an uncle, not ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... Stanley, paying scant attention, suddenly leaned forward in his saddle. At one of the windows a curtain was drawn back; a woman's face appeared for a moment silhouetted against inner light; then ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... behind. “I can remember, as if it were yesterday, going to drive with Lady B-, the British ambassadress, in just such a conveyance. She drove four horses with feathers on their heads, when she used to come to Meurice’s for me. I blush when I think that my frock was so scant that I had to raise the skirt almost to my knees in order to get ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... The scant record of Jackson's services in the House of Representatives and in the Senate is of little importance to us save in three respects. It throws some light on his political opinions at that period; it gives us a glimpse of him as he appeared against the background of the most elegant ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown

... Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... man can say To your great country that, with scant delay, You must, perforce, ease them in their loud need: We know that nearer first your duty lies; But—is it much to ask that you let plead Your lovingkindness with you—wooing-wise - Albeit that aught you owe, and must repay, No ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... Christmas. The whole next day the rain continued to beat against the window. There was nothing to be done, and I spent my time in arranging the scattered but numbered sheets of the vanished schoolmaster's manuscript, which I found littered in the drawer allotted to me for my scant belongings. And then I began to read that strange man's diary, the first page of which only ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... once the Monastery, to come into the narrow back lane wherein stands the crazy wooden house of two low stories currently known as the Travellers' Twopenny:- a house all warped and distorted, like the morals of the travellers, with scant remains of a lattice-work porch over the door, and also of a rustic fence before its stamped-out garden; by reason of the travellers being so bound to the premises by a tender sentiment (or so fond of having a fire by the roadside in the course of the day), ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... smiled ironically, and ran his fingers through his scant gray hair. "Why, Don, I'd change places with any old corpse to-night, just for a chance to lie down in a quiet corner and stop thinking! No, there's nothing you can do. There's nothing anybody can do. Good night; close ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... studied 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 to tear ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

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

... days that followed, between the necessary adjustment of matters of state, and the many ceremonies incident upon the King's sudden death, there was scant time to discuss the rapid happenings; even in the court-circle they scarcely knew what was passing—still less how it had come about. It was said that Janus had died of malignant fever, due to the terrible malaria of the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... ingenious devices, which greatly tormented the New York operator. For the first time in his life the courts, which Harley had used to much advantage in his battles to maintain and extend the trusts he controlled, could not be used even to get scant justice. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... scant heed to these accustomed sights but walked as far as the wharf built of palmetto piling. The wide harbor and the sea that flashed beyond the outer bar were ruffled by a piping breeze out of the northeast. The only vessel at anchor ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... lambskin, in which he had been tricked out by the Pont-Neuf dealers to make him look like a poodle, appeared in all the wretched guise and ugliness of a street cur, a worthless mongrel. He had grown fat, and his scant garment was choking him. Once he was rid of his carapace, he wagged his ears, stretched his limbs, and started romping joyously round the room, caring nothing about being ugly so long as he was comfortable. His appetite ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would have forced back the walls again. If only once she had walked by his side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time. The world had narrowed down to a pin prick, but if only she had come a scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big enough to grasp the meaning ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... so far that they found it easier to put in for shelter near the home of Lo-Lale than to return to Maui. The storm, the spray, the chilling gusts, compelled Kelea to sit close in the shelter of Kalamakua's sturdy form. He levied on the scant draperies of his crew for cloth to keep her warm, and all the men dined scantily that she might be fed. It is not strange that a friendship was born on that voyage between the two people who had been so oddly introduced. Lo-Lale ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... terror at the incandescent sky; and then, low and growing, came the murmur of the flood. And thus it was with millions of men that night—a flight nowhither, with limbs heavy with heat and breath fierce and scant, and the flood like a wall swift and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... there would be but two of them ... Should spend her evenings at the spinning-wheel or in patching old clothes ... Now arid then in summer resting for half an hour, seated on the door-step, looking across their scant fields girt by the measureless frowning woods; or in winter thawing a little patch with her breath on the windowpane, dulled with frost, to watch the snow falling on the wintry earth and the forest ... The forest ... Always the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... distance, she would wave her hand at her husband, as though she thought he could increase the intensity of his silence. With a graceful, dextrous thrust she would stab her game, and, gathering up her scant skirts, she would dash into the water after it. The moment she got her hand on it she would let out a delighted little scream of glee, and go bounding over the rocks to exhibit it to her lord and master. I wanted to wring his scrawny ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... along the route, and half-naked savages gaze patronizingly upon us from their doorways. An elderly lady in spectacles appears to be much scandalized by the scant dress of these people, and wants to know why the Select Men don't put a stop to it. From this, and a remark she incidentally makes about her son, who has invented a washing machine which will wash, wring, and dry a shirt in ten minutes, I infer that she is ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... period was a period of extreme demands on him. In it there was scant opportunity to go here or there with his triumphant armies. His work in the field, as a commanding general, had practically ceased with his removal from the Ninth Army after little more than a month of such command. From the time he took up his headquarters ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... urn, The one unsparing dash'd the bitter wave Of woe; and as he dash'd, his dark-brown brow Relax'd to a hard smile. The milder form Shed less profusely there his lesser store; Sometimes with tears increasing the scant boon, Mourning the lot of man; and happy he Who on his thread those precious drops receives; If it be happiness to have the pulse Throb fast with pity, and in such a world Of wretchedness, the generous heart that aches With anguish at the sight of ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... devastations of war, combined with the fact that there was no systematic attempt made in the Philippines to preserve in archives and libraries the records of the past, and it can well be understood why a scant handful of cradle-books have been preserved. The two fires of 1603 alone, which burned the Dominican convent in Manila to the ground and consumed the whole of Binondo just outside the walls, must have played untold havoc upon the ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous

... beasts but the bear, safe asleep in his den, and the porcupine, browsing contentedly on hemlock and spruce, went lean with famine. During this period, since she had all that even her great appetite could dispose of, the carcajou robbed neither the hunter's traps nor the scant stores of the other animals. But at last her larder was bare. Then, turning her attention to the traps again, she speedily drew upon her the trapper's wrath, and found herself obliged to keep watch against two foes at once, and they ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... which served as kitchen and dining-room in one. Here a cheerful blaze made merry about an ancient crane, on which a coffeeboiler swung slowly back and forth with a bubbling noise. In the red firelight a plain pine table was spread with a scant supper of cornbread and bacon and a cracked Wedgewood pitcher filled with buttermilk. There was no silver; the china consisted of some odd, broken pieces of old willow-ware; and beyond a bunch of damask roses stuck in a quaint glass vase, there was no visible ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... men even as Angel Guimera, the dramatist, a Catalan separatist who has been under surveillance for years, or Pere Aldavert, who has suffered imprisonment in Barcelona because of his opinions, while they speak for the proletariat, nevertheless have had scant sympathy for Ferrer's ideas. It would be interesting to know just to what extent these commend themselves to Pablo and Emiliano Iglesias and the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... that however distasteful the hardships and comparative poverty of this new home, it was far safer for him than the land of his birth. His worldly position there gave him sundry claims of superiority, for all of which his hardy pioneer son had had scant sympathy; and Ralph Emsden, in the difficult crisis of the disclosure of the state of his affections, heaved many a sigh for this ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... across the desert was even more terrible than the advance, for the two scant water-holes had been nearly exhausted by the Apaches, so that both beasts and human beings suffered horribly with thirst. There was just this one good thing about the parched and famished wilderness, that it relieved the emigrants from all fear ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The stripping of gear was remorseless. The Indian was appalled when he saw every pound of worthless mail matter retained, while beans, cups, pails, plates, and extra clothing were thrown by the board. One robe each was kept, one ax, one tin pail, and a scant supply of bacon and flour. Bacon could be eaten raw on a pinch, and flour, stirred in hot water, could keep men going. Even the rifle and the score of rounds ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... A scant hour before the three men came to the "showgrounds" their quarry arrived there. That Blake and his companion were man-hunters goes without saying, but that the person for whom they searched should ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon



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



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com