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noun
Scant  n.  Scantness; scarcity. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... competition which is causing some concern among the trading community has not, as it seems to me, gone far enough yet to be a serious danger. The idea that the big banks with offices in London give scant consideration to the needs of their local customers seems to be so contrary to the interests of the banks that they would be extraordinarily bad men of business if those who were responsible for their management allowed it to be the fact. It is probably nearer the truth that banking competition ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... rather a coarse mode of estimating Silas's relation to Eppie; but we must remember that many of the impressions which Godfrey was likely to gather concerning the labouring people around him would favour the idea that deep affections can hardly go along with callous palms and scant means; and he had not had the opportunity, even if he had had the power, of entering intimately into all that was exceptional in the weaver's experience. It was only the want of adequate knowledge that could have made it possible for Godfrey deliberately to entertain ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... painstaking and able an effort should have met with so chilling a reception, and that an heir-apparent to a peerage, who has had the courage to propose a scheme for the reform of the House of Lords, should receive such scant attention ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... bureau and a shining mahogany table suggested an era of "plain living" far, far remote from the day of Turkish rugs and Japanese bric-a-brac, and Aunt Jane was in perfect correspondence with her environment. She wore a purple calico dress, rather short and scant; a gingham apron, with a capacious pocket, in which she always carried knitting or some other "handy work"; a white handkerchief was laid primly around the wrinkled throat and fastened with a pin containing a lock of gray hair; her cap was of black lace ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... and could utilize troops that would otherwise have been detached as guards. By its potent power, also, the troops were hurried from point to point of the Confederacy, thus keeping the Federal armies so long outside the charmed circle of the seceded States. With worn-out rails, scant supply of carriage-material, and wheezy engines, they performed herculean labor throughout the war. Consequently it became the favorite pastime and the almost sole business of Union cavalry to destroy or attempt ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... and her left hand is squirming together till they look like a bunch of eels. 'All over but the rice,' I says, and at that I felt so good and thrilled! I was thinking back to my own time when I was just husband-high, though that wasn't so little, Lysander John being a scant six foot three—and our wedding tour to the Centennial and the trip to Niagara Falls—just soaking in old memories that bless and bind that this lady singer was calling up—well, you could have had anything from me right ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... to declare in another that the time which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.[47] No greater instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no time could have been more delightful ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... trapper eats at once, or dries for the future, every ounce of flesh he traps, from the scant flesh-covering over the animal's skull to the feet and the entrails. As soon as the skins of beaver and musquash are removed, the bodies, so many skinned cats, are impaled on sticks of jack-pine and set sizzling before the fire. In the woods ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... 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 ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... wonder came into the old face—then it began to writhe, and from each eye oozed scant tears, seeking a channel amid the seams and wrinkles ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... artillery are executed on the parade-ground. Jean loved his profession; he was in the habit of inspecting carefully the grooming and harness of the horses, the equipment and carriage of his men. This morning, however, he bestowed but scant attention on all the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... did so, two men mounted. They examined the three rooms of the upper story hastily but carefully, paying scant attention to her, and departed swearing. In a few moments they returned for the stranger's trunk. Nell followed them down the stairs as far as the doorway. There she heard and saw things, and fled in bitter dismay to the back of the house when ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... reached to the belly-bands. At others, it led through a reedy swamp, or a stony watercourse; or it became a bog; or dived through a creek. Where the ground was flat and treeless, it was a rutty, well-worn track between two seas of pale, scant grass. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... of the English general, Pakenham, on January 8, 1815, which meant the control of the mouths of the Mississippi, as well as safeguarding the city of New Orleans, reflected the highest credit on his skill and unflagging energy. The English had superior numbers, between 8,000 and 9,000 men, against a scant 6,000 under Jackson, and their force was made up of veterans of the European wars. In command of the left of his line Jackson placed the gallant general William Carroll, born in Philadelphia, but of Irish blood, who was afterwards ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... you, sir; has your king any commission to take any man against his will. I promise you, I can scant believe it; or did ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... they told me in the wild wood, I heard on the mountain side, That the shining house of heaven is wrought exceeding wide, And that there the Early-comers shall have abundant rest While Earth grows scant of great ones, and fadeth from its best, And fadeth from its midward and groweth poor and vile:— All hail to thee King Volsung! ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... class of Nagasaki were allowed to visit them. In every way they were forced to acknowledge their inferiority and undergo deprivations and mortifications, for which, let us hope, they succeeded in finding some compensation in the scant privileges of their trade. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... gathered in incredible numbers. The sky was full of them circling; an encompassing ring of them sat a scant fifty yards distant, their wings held half out from their bodies, as though they felt overheated. And in the low bushes could be discerned the lurking, furtive, ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the Supreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual powers, yet it is sui generis, and of an infinitely higher order. The familiar distinction of latria and ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... shacks down in the valley where we can shelter them if we have cold rains during the season. They feed down there along the river, eating sage-brush and dried hay from fall until spring. It is often scant picking, but if it is too scant we give them grain, alfalfa hay, or ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... had ever failed to manifest that sympathy which a similarity of tastes would seem to justify. He had assumed the tone of a moralist on her separation from Angus, and had treated Lord Methven in his letters with scant respect, and when in the course of time she began to be weary of her new spouse, and to complain of him with increasing bitterness, it was long before Henry could be roused to express any interest in the subject. At last, however, he found a convenient season for ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... "catching hold of my heel, and the women catching the men's clothes." He did not ask whether the men had brought their picks with them. A miner, black or white, does not drop his pick. One by one, Janki leading, they crept into the old gallery—a six-foot way with a scant four feet from ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... In wet weather clogs and pattens formed an extra and much needed protection when the fair colonists walked. Linen underclothing formed the first superstructure of the feminine costume and threw its penetrating chill to the very marrow of the bones. Often in mid-winter the scant-skirted French calico gowns were made with short elbow sleeves and round, low necks, and the throat and shoulders were lightly covered with thin lawn neckerchiefs or dimity tuckers. The flaunting hooped-petticoat ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... fortress is in the centre of the ship, and fills up about one-third of her length and three-fourths of her breadth. The surrounding deck is flush, its surface being broken only by the skylights, which are three in number. The skylights allow but a scant and dim light to penetrate to the officers' and seamen's quarters below; but even this is wanting in time of action, when a shot-proof shield takes the place ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

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

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

... back from the river, on top of the level gravelly earth which stretched for miles on either side of the river clear to the mountains. This earth and gravel mixture was so firmly packed that even the cactus had a scant foothold. The town interested me for one reason only, this being, that I could get my meals for the evening and the following morning, instead of having to cook them myself. After I had eaten them, however, there was a question in my mind if my own cooking, bad as it was, would not ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... their courage in refusing their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... boats were now but a scant hundred yards away. For some reason, evidently thinking to pick off the men in the boats, the enemy had not brought artillery to bear. But at this juncture a squad sprang forward to serve the gun ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... fancies quite equal to those of the woman; and the day when either party guesses them they take wings to themselves and fly away. Are not such things like the flower of wild fruits, bitter-sweet, grown in the heart of a forest, the joy of the scant sun-rays, the joy, as Canalis says in the "Maiden's Song," of the plant itself whose eyes unclosing see its own image ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... Elizabethan prose—a contempt of 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

... then. Some drunken artisan, who faced discharge on the morrow. Ivan turned from the window; but quickly returned to it. Vulgarly drunk the man might be. But even the fires of alcohol form scant protection against such cold as reigned to-day. The man might be frozen ere an officer perceived him. Moreover, as Ivan looked again, something in the recumbent figure suggested the abandon rather of despair than of debauchery.—An instant's hesitation. Then the watcher ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... the middle of the 19th century, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was exceedingly scant. No records existed that were contemporaneous with the period covered by Babylonian-Assyrian history; no monuments of the past were preserved that might, in default of records, throw light upon the religious ideas and customs that once prevailed in Mesopotamia. The only sources at ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... into our saddle-bags and separated for the day into two parties, Nimrod and the Horsewrangler, the Host and myself, leaving the Cook to take care of camp. We were hunting for elk, mountain lion, or bear. Nimrod had his camera, as well as his gun, a combination which the Horsewrangler eyed with scant tolerance. ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... but the most instructive and impressive talker in Germany, and the one man who appears to have influenced the direction of his mind. Bishop Martensen has described his amazing powers; and Doellinger, who remembered him with more scant esteem, bore equal testimony to the wealth and worth of his religious philosophy. He probably owed to him his persistent disparagement of Hegel, and more certainly that familiarity with the abstruse literature of mysticism which ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... been so inclined, you might have really stood in that relation to me, for I guess that my little Freda would not have said no had you asked her hand; but now our paths are to part. I shall never war again with the Saxons, for indeed there is but scant booty to be gained there, while you are not likely again to be cast upon our shores; but should the fates ever throw us together again, remember that you have a friend for life ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... seems to have treated his mother with scant courtesy in public but Suarez, a jesuit theologian and Spanish gentleman, ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... welcome as befits my Scarborow's brothers, From me his trothplight wife be sure to have, And though my tongue prove scant in any part, The bounds be sure are ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... increasing party in the Scottish Church, forced themselves into the pulpits of the land and conducted worship in a manner approved of by themselves. In these services preaching occupied the most prominent place, and to worship, as such, but scant attention was given, so that in 1653 the ministers of the city of Edinburgh, finding complaints among the people that in the services of the Sabbath day there was no reading of Scripture nor singing ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... same opinions, had never shaken these illusions, it was but natural that they should have done their best to hand them down as sacred heirlooms to their only child. Even Gabriel's four years of hard fighting and scant rations were enkindled by so much of the disinterested idealism that had sent his State into the Confederacy, that he had emerged from them with an impoverished body, but an enriched spirit. Combined with his inherent inability to face the facts of life, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... for when Sir Robert Ker Porter visited the town, he states that the whole contents of the market appeared to be no more than the dismembered carcasses of two sheep, two goats, and the red, rough filaments of a buffalo. This display was but scant provision for a population of 7,000. The streets are narrow like those of Bagdad; a necessary evil in Eastern climates, to exclude the power of the sun; but they are even more noisome and filthy. In like manner also, they are crowded, but not with so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... made me the object of much false admiration, and much real satire. Many men who owed to me their elevation or their success have defamed me; many women have belittled my position after vain efforts to secure the King's regard. In what I now write, scant notice will be taken of all such ingratitude. Before my establishment at Court I had met with hypocrisy of this sort in the world; and a man must, indeed, be reckless of expense who daily entertains at his board a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... let us refuse to our girls the divine hardness which is the very heart of a diviner joy and of that "fuller life" of "which our veins are scant," nor refuse for them and for ourselves the words of life: "As the Father hath sent Me into the world, even so send I you"; but be content to send them into the world to love, to suffer, to endure, to live and die for the good ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... be considered the first inland explorer of the south-eastern portion of Australia rests upon his discovery of the Hawkesbury River and a few short excursions to the northward of Port Jackson, had but scant leisure to spare from his official duties for extended geographical research. For all that, Phillip and a few of his officers were sufficiently imbued with the spirit of discovery to find opportunity to investigate a considerable area of country in ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... whom one of the strongest was Falstaffe, who wrote in direct opposition to Steele's "Sir John Edgar", openly attempting to provoke that knight to a journalistic contest. But Edgar gave scant attention to his essays, though they were vigorously written and presented strong arguments in defense of the Lord Chamberlain's intervention in Drury Lane affairs. Steele acknowledged the first number of The Anti-Theatre (it appeared on February ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

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

... rump of his unhappy pony, and the Stoic of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak in the legs from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, this is a casus omissus in Lo's tactics. Scant time, however, has he for reflection. He gathers up himself and his drapery as well as circumstances will allow, and scuttles hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and feathers. It is too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. A few minutes and the Philistines are upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... water and sweetmeats did not permit their presence to be overlooked, and donkeys occasionally joined in the chorus. Each figure unfamiliar to our Western eyes, in turban or in fez, in slippers or in bare feet, in scant gown of cotton or full robe of silk, was a subject worthy of being ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... 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 Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... Needless to say that scant justice was done to the play and score of "La Bohme" by the vagrant singers, and that the good opinion which the opera won later was shared by few among critics, lay and professional. After ten years of familiar acquaintance with the work, I like it better ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... to relate briefly his experiences at the chateau, thus beguiling the way until the curiously assorted trio reached the Flying Fish, at the vast bulk of which Vasilovich stared in stupefied amazement. His captors, however, afforded him but scant time for indulgence in surprise or conjecture, conveying him forthwith to the tank chamber, wherein they securely locked him, taking the additional precaution of placing his hands and feet in fetters and attaching him thereby ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... trying to keep the troublesome Robbins where he belonged, which, in Clint's judgment, was among the second team substitutes. That was a glorious afternoon for the second team, for they held the 'varsity scoreless in the first period and allowed them only the scant consolation of a field-goal in the second. "Boutelle's Babies," as some waggish first team man had labelled them, went off in high feather and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... disappearance, though it might have seemed final, had been only of recent seasons. She was present again now, all unexpectedly—he had heard of her having at last, left alone after successive deaths and with scant resources, sought economic salvation in Europe, the promised land of American thrift—she was present as this almost ancient and this oddly unassertive little rotund figure whom one seemed no more obliged ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... from his pack's scant treasure A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure To hear ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... now scant time for brooding—scarce time for thought at all. There were no other women at the Farm Hospital except the laundresses. Every regiment in the newly formed division encamped in the vicinity furnished one man from each company ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... and I have volunteered as a scout of three," I said, "but Colonel Sheldon has declined our services with scant politeness." ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Devoted as my father was to business, he always showed the greatest respect for men of thought. I have known him, even when most absorbed in his pursuits, to watch occasions for walking homeward with a clergyman or teacher, whose conversation he especially prized. There was scant respect in the family for the petty politicians of the region; but there was great respect for the instructors of the academy, and for any college professor who happened to be traveling through the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... hope and snare of every real-estate man, but, though poor, she will not part with it. She has a house, however, that she rents in the season. One day some Eastern people were looking at it, and timidly said that one bath-room seemed rather scant for ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... of the terrace, absorbed by confused 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 her in ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... soon appeared that there was not time enough—that the time was growing very scant. In three months Adolphe would be back. And if everything was not arranged by that time, matters might still ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope

... divined it to bear, on Mr. Strether's essential inaptitude. She had looked him in his conscious eyes even before he sailed, and that she didn't believe HE would find the woman had been written in her book. Hadn't she at the best but a scant faith in his ability to find women? It wasn't even as if he had found her mother—so much more, to her discrimination, had her mother performed the finding. Her mother had, in a case her private judgement of which remained educative of Mrs. Pocock's critical sense, found the man. The man owed ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... experience, which meets any one who knows much of the workings of men's hearts, and of his own, when faith is exercised with but little of the light of faith, and the fear of the Lord is cherished with but scant joy in the Lord. Now if it be remembered that such an application of the words is not their original purpose, there can be no harm in using them so. Indeed we may say that, as the words are perfectly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... a scant 300 yards away, the Russians had apparently succeeded in getting the range. As I watched through the glasses I saw shrapnel burst over the battery there and watched a noncommissioned soldier fall with three of his comrades. I was told that one had been killed and three wounded. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... a curly tangle. He was sensitive and high-strung, very much the artist and the man of science. His enthusiasms were intense, and, once his mind was filled with an idea, he followed it devotedly. He was very little the practical business man and paid scant attention to the small, practical details of life. He was so interested in visible speech, and so keenly alert to the pathos of the lives of the deaf mutes, that he many times seriously considered giving over all experiments ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... under the soft flood of light from a basket-shaded lamp, rose precipitately, and stood looking at him with widened eyes and parted lips, without speaking. She was plainly frightened, though she made herself smile. She wore a scant, long-sleeved garment of a deep, oriental blue, that covered her from her white throat to her feet, and yet that was obviously only for bedroom wear, and to which she gave a quick, apologetic glance, as the man came in. He noticed that in this mellow light her blue eyes seemed ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... were to meet the foe, none was so eager for the fray as Dan. In spite of Scotty's admonitions, he went to one of his officers to beg permission to join the advance the next morning. The request was promptly refused, and the volunteer bidden with scant ceremony to go back to his boat and mind his own business. But Mr. Murphy was convinced that his business lay with the front rank of the advancing column. He had not been trained to army discipline and was not minded to lose the glorious chance of participating in a real battle for such a trifling ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... of the boundary line. When not thus employed they lolled about, like true lords of creation, smoking, drowsing or indifferently watching their squaws, who did all the tilling of the ground and gathering of the scant crops from the rich soil. The Blackfeet lived too far to the eastward to take any part in the salmon fishing which gave employment to so many of their race on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The warriors were finely formed, and were held in no little ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... surprise was indubitable. He snatched the envelope from the boy, who had reached it toward Shirley. The criminologist was no less in the dark. Warren, with a scant apology, tore open the missive. It was typewritten! He read it, and his brows came together with ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... replied Will Sommers, enjoying the disconcerted look of the other jester. "I was at the palace at Hampton, when this scant-witted knave invited me to taste some of his master's wine, and accordingly to the cellar we went. 'This wine will surprise you,' quoth he, as we broached the first hogshead. And truly it did surprise me, for no wine followed the gimlet. So we went on to another, and another, and another, till we ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... distinguish fact from theory cannot be successful, so long as the psychological way of thinking prevails; for a theory, psychologically considered, is a bare fact in the experience of the theorist, and the other facts of his experience are so many other momentary views, so many scant theories, to be immediately superseded by other "truths in the plural." Sensations and ideas are really distinguishable only by reference to what is assumed to lie without; of which external reality experience is always an effect (and in that capacity is called sensation) and often at ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... unendurable, she rose, in hopes that action might bring some sort of relief. Such plain toilet was made as the very limited means at her command permitted. The scant privacy afforded by her room was another torture. Maiden modesty suggested a Peeping Tom at every yawning ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... scant shelter of some greasewood bushes we devoured the repast which the morning's exercise and the crisp air had made so welcome, and each drank several cups of tea dipped from the camp-kettle wherein Andy had boiled it. We had no formal table. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... a theater attached to the restaurant. Through the glass doors we could see an iridescence of scant costumes, but the audience was light, and we ourselves preferred, as a more satisfactory ending to our day, to walk quietly toward the Arc de Triomphe which is waiting, waiting for fresh glories. On the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... two nights' lighting up of the principal buildings, &c.), by an extra grand show of thousands of lamps at Soho, with the accompaniment of fireworks and fire-balloons, the roasting of sheep and oxen, &c. Waterloo was the next occasion, but local chroniclers of the news of the day gave but scant note thereof. From time to time there have been illuminations for several more peaceable matters of rejoicing, but the grandest display that Birmingham has ever witnessed was that to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales, March 10th, 1863, when St. Philip's ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... they played golf. It was at the fifth tee that they abandoned the last pretense of formality. She topped her drive wretchedly; the ball rolled a scant ten feet. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... small-paned window with its view of distant hill 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 give up her girlhood all at once. She might not keep a vestige of it, for that would betray ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... up, and there was only scant herbage for my large herd of cattle, the half of which I promised to give Bedden if he would carry ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... a sanguine turn of mind, I waited, full of comforting hope. About five, after some scant food, we were told to get up and go downstairs. It was still dark because of the continuous rain and overcast skies. I refused to walk, and was lifted by two men and put in a waggon. A few early idlers were around the door to see us come out. I looked eagerly ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... casualness of it that strikes me most. Neither Stein nor I had a clear conception of what might be on the other side when we, metaphorically speaking, took him up and hove him over the wall with scant ceremony. At the moment I merely wished to achieve his disappearance; Stein characteristically enough had a sentimental motive. He had a notion of paying off (in kind, I suppose) the old debt he had never forgotten. Indeed ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... SCANT. A term applied to the wind when it heads a ship off, so that she will barely lay her course when the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... that small fleet drove onward o'er the deep, Cleaving the sunset with their bright black prows Or hunted by the red pursuing Dawn, He stirred between the high-born gentlemen (Whose white and jewelled hands, gallant in fight, And hearts remembering Crecy and Poictiers, Were of scant use in common seamanship), Between these and the men whose rough tarred arms Were good at equal need in storm or war Yet took a poorer portion of the prize, He stirred a subtle jealousy and fanned A fire that swiftly ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... 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 ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Scant feet from ground surface, the sportster pilot flicked his pitch control and pulled his throttle out for the brief burst of power which would allow him to drop ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

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

... 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 ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... neighborhood, likewise enlisting, insisted that he be their captain; and Governor Andrews, appealed to, consented to commission the nineteen-year-old youth who was so evidently a natural leader; and the men gave freely of their scant money to get for him a sword, all gay and splendid with gilt, and upon the sword was the declaration in stately Latin that, ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... in which mathematical knowledge is of value or for magisterial functions. The misfortunes of our family caused him to follow a different career, and he underwent many hardships with unshaken courage. He never complained of his lot, though life had scant enjoyment save that which is derived from love of home. These joys are, however, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... The scant meal at an end, they resumed their journey, the doctor's son taking the lead. They moved in a semicircle around the base of one small mountain and then reached a rather ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill

... alone withstood the blandishments of Louis with verses of biting satire. Little noticed at the time was the appearance of Reichardt's "Wacht am Rhein," a song which was destined to become the battle hymn of Germany. Scant attention, likewise, was given to Froebel's epoch-making work, "The Education of Man." On the other hand much pother was made over some curious exchanges of sovereignty, characteristic of German politics in those days. The Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Meiningen ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... it seemed, by no means so firm as its name sounded. Mr. Dodge's hopes for it were unfulfilled. It was very little indeed that could now be wrung from it. The Fidelity was for Mother—with a margin, scant enough, to eke out the young Sturgises' income. There was the bill for carting, other bills, daily expenses. Felicia, reading over Ken's ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... big electric fans that supplied a change of air as it entered through the great air intakes. The furnaces roared. A couple of engineers nodded to him and one of them led him to a bunk where he exchanged his uniform for the thin, scant garments suited to his new work. At once he returned to his new duty. He found the shifts were short, but the work was so heavy and the heat so intense that at the end of his first duty he went to his stuffy bunk and threw himself down, more exhausted ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... the sweets—for she was heady; But, ere the matter could be marr'd or mended, The silvery bell rang, not for 'dinner ready, But for that hour, call'd half-hour, given to dress, Though ladies' robes seem scant enough for less. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... intercepted the sunshine, and, looking up, she saw Abner Dimock's father, the elder Abner, entering the little wicket-gate of the garden. A strange, tottering old figure, his nose and chin grimacing at each other, his bleared eyes telling unmistakable truths of cider-brandy and New England rum, his scant locks of white lying in confusion over his wrinkled forehead and cheeks, his whole air squalid, hopeless, and degraded,—not so much by the poverty of vice as by its demoralizing stamp penetrating from the inner to the outer man, and levelling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... civilized women soon became apparent; at any rate his suggestion was not widely adopted, and had been completely forgotten until a few years ago, when the custom was revived in one of the German clinics. The innovation met with violent opposition in Europe, and, so far as I know, has found but scant favor in America. ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... capture a city in the northwest in February with irritation, but without discouragement. They had acted prematurely there and without sufficient secrecy. That was all. The plan in itself was right. And he had watched the scant reports of the uprising in the newspapers with amusement and scorn. The very steps taken to suppress the facts showed the uneasiness of the authorities and left the nation with ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... a tedious season of watching on the mole of Alger; but not to make this business as wearisome to others, I will pass that over and come at once to that joyful, happy morning, when, with but scant hope, looking down upon the deck of a galley entering the port, to our infinite delight and amazement we perceived Richard Godwin waving his hand to us in sign of recognition. Then sure, mad with joy, we would have cast ourselves in the sea had ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... never seemed to stop once, but, however curving and twisting his course might be, the boy noted that the furrow invariably occurred at the end of a stretch where few needles had fallen on the ground and the debris was very scant. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... stretched to meet her own and heard a voice which rang kindly on her ears. It was Sally Trevennick, who faced the spiteful laughter without flinching and said a few loud, friendly words, though indeed her well-meant support brought scant comfort with it ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... district asylums. This would leave, out of the number of idiots reported by the census, about 18,000 with their friends or boarded out, or 18,900 at the present time, in consequence of the increase of population. We have, however, but scant faith in the correctness of these relative amounts. All we really know is the number receiving definite teaching or training, and an approximation—nothing more—to the gross number of idiots and imbeciles in the land. The next point is to determine the number who belong to the class, already indicated, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... down his loaves with great deliberation, and spent a few minutes taking Martin in. Then he answered, "There's scant milk to a Sussex, and allus will be. And if there was not, there'd be none to Joscelyn's Lemon. And if there was, it would take more than Henry to draw it. And so that's you, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... But none came and the night descended calm, dark, and still. As the slow hours dragged themselves away, the ship's company, weary of the monotony of their watch, sought their sleeping places, or found such scant comfort as the decks afforded, until of them all only ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... day we kept our course as neere the winde as wee could, because that our due course to fetch the coast of Barbary was Southeast and by East, but by the scant winde we could not goe our due course, but went as neere it as we could, and ranne this ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... the City Hotel was scant and badly prepared. I gave a negro lad who waited upon me a few cents, but a burly negro carver, who seemed to be his father, boxed the boy's ears and put the coppers into his pocket. The proprietor of the place had voluntarily taken the oath ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... these graves by the roadside going east you will hardly go a mile in two hundred which has not its graves. From the environs of Meaux, a scant twenty miles from Paris, to the frontier at the Seille, beyond Nancy, there are graves and more graves, now scattered, now crowded together where men fought hand to hand. Passing them in a swift-moving auto, they seem to march by you; there is the illusion of an army advancing ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds

... binds nothing, which ties nothing, Call it marriage, call it crime, Names its nature cannot alter, I was born, a perfect image, A true copy of my mother, In her loveliness, ah, no! In her miseries and misfortunes. Therefore there is little need To say how the hapless daughter, Heiress of such scant good luck, Had her own peculiar portion. All that I will say to thee Of myself is, that the robber Of the trophies of my fame, Of the sweet spoils of my honour, Is Astolfo . . . . Ah! to name him Stirs and rouses up the choler Of the heart, a fitting effort When an enemy's name is spoken,— ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... sight, forthwith entered into conversation, and being a simple man, with nothing of the patron about him, at once won Clare's affection. The acquaintance thus begun soon ripened into friendship, with, however, but scant personal intercourse, owing to the many occupations of the active dissenting minister, and the distance of his place of residence from Casterton. But John Clare did not fail to lay most of the verses he was writing before his clerical friend, and was ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... village, to whom any man or woman may go with request or complaint. If two of those three men judge the matter fit to refer to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any man think them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and honoured master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... some mayflowers up to the west gable and put them under the picture. But the charm had gone out of the tribute; and looking at the picture, he thought how scant was the justice it did her. Her face was so much sweeter, her eyes so much softer, her hair so much more lustrous. The soul of his love had gone from the room and from the picture and from his dreams. When he tried to think of the Alice he loved ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... go further in her confessions, nor explain more lucidly why she had scant affection for Mait-land of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... 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 ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... the south side of Leicester Fields, in a house afterwards the residence of another Switzer of the same craft, that miserable Theodore Gardelle, who in 1761 murdered his landlady, Mrs. King. Of Rouquet's activities as an artist in England there are scant particulars. The ordinary authorities affirm that he imitated and rivalled the popular miniaturist and enameller, Christian Zincke, who retired from practice in 1746; and he is loosely described as ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... do better for ourselves or for Matua; so, after talking it over with him, we agreed to Captain Grimes' offer. I first bargained that some food and water might be given to our friends, for had I not done so, I fear that they would have had a scant allowance. To tow is to drag a boat or vessel by a rope through the water. We now went aboard the ship, which was called the Grampus. She was a very different looking craft from the Rose, and her officers and men were a very ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... to the houseless child of want My door is open still; And, though my portion is but scant, I give ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods, The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it—the outset anywhere, The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimmed faces, The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... the eternal shore! One other garnered into perfect peace! One other hid from hearing and from sight!... O but the days go heavily, and the toil Which used to seem so pleasant yields scant joy. There come no tokens to us from the dead: Save—it may be—that now and then we reap Where not we sowed, and that may be from them, Fruit of their prayers when we forgot to pray! Meantime there comes no message, comes no word: Day after day no message and no sign: And the ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... the dark. Faint rumours had preceded the march of Jackson's army, but he had given them scant credit. On the morning of the 26th, however, he was rudely enlightened. It was but too clear that Jackson, strongly reinforced from Richmond, was bearing down upon his most vulnerable point—his right wing, which, in anticipation of McDowell's advance, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... though scantly three times five 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 ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... tolerate him. A young advertising man who began several years ago had two very interesting experiences with two gruff executives in two different companies. Both consented to see him, both kept on writing at their desks after he entered and gave him scant attention throughout the interview. Apparently they were both successful business men. Certainly they both held positions that would indicate it. Yet both of them a few years later came to the young advertising man at different times looking for ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... won over to a new 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

... scant straight skirts, tucked up to the waist, or with needlework at the bottom, or two or three tiny ruffles. The stockings were not always white, oftener they matched the color of the slippers that were laced across the instep. The necks were ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... cheerfully as 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 ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... always be thickened with yolks of eggs, beat up with a spoon of cold water. Ordinary beef soup or tomato soup may be thickened with flour. To do this properly heat a scant spoon of soup drippings, stir in briskly a spoon of flour, and add gradually a large quantity of soup to ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... through distress and suffering, and so on with hundreds of others. We must not expect all to begin by being perfect. It matters little how we commence, provided only that we are firmly resolved to go on well, and to end well. Certainly Leah intruded with scant courtesy into Rachel's promised place, as the wife of Jacob, yet she afterwards conducted herself so irreproachably, and behaved with such modesty and sweetness, that to her rather than to Rachel was vouchsafed the blessing of being an ancestress ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... 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. ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... themselves of their labour were careful 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 ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... I watched the brilliant figures swimming in the glow of wax candles. Face after face could be singled out as beautiful, and the scant dresses revealed taper forms. Madame de Ferrier's garments may have been white or blue or yellow; I remember only her satin arms and neck, the rosy color of her face, and the powder on her hair making it white as down. Where this assembly ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... about, 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

... grass for our horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,—ah, that was different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was scant and wiry,—not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch-grass of the open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had to be bustling around a good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

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

... door, as if he expected some one to enter. Abraham Windsor was a man of sixty, and each year seemed to have left its impress upon the man who had battled through it, so that he seemed his own living history, and by close observation you might read of a youth of scant schooling in books, not spent among folks of gentle breeding, nor protected from the world, but left to shift for itself against the numerous kicks and scanty half pence of the hard world; then one might discern the period of restless scheming and speculation, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... cross to the top of the hill. And when he laid it down and looked once again into the face of the malefactor who had staggered up beside him, he recognised the Prophet. He recognised the man with whom he had spoken in the desert concerning eternal life. He had then paid scant attention to His words, but he had forgotten none of them. Now he began to understand that whoever lived according to the teaching of this man must attain inward happiness. And was it on account of that teaching that the man was to ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... of the Islamic world, and crowded with men and material of war, yet the Governor was permitted his harem, and this was its room in common. Here his wives, many or few, for the time banished to some other quarters, were in the habit of meeting for the enjoyment of the scant pleasantries afforded ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... that bor'st the battle's brunt At Queenstown, and at Lundy's Lane: On whose scant ranks but iron front The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... attraction of the sexes. Discouraged in some directions, it will out in others, never permanently satisfied. Each age and people must have its own art as well as what remains of the arts of past ages and peoples - in spite of scant patronage, commercial limitation, and critics' hostility. The philosopher tells us that everything has been done, yet we must do it again ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... even after death. The men are buried with ceremony (Curr, I., 89), but "as the women and children are held to be very inferior to the men whilst alive, and their spirits are but little feared after death, they are interred with but scant ceremony... the women alone wailing." Thus they show their contempt even for the ghosts of women, though they are so afraid of other ghosts that they never leave camp in the dark or have a nocturnal dance except by ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... is fit to be placed in command over his fellow-men. My old ship, the Dolphin, continued in our company for several days, during which we made the best of our way to the northward, the wind, though scant, enabling us, close-hauled, to keep a course in that direction. When somewhere about the latitude of Lisbon, a ship hove in eight, standing towards us under all sail. As her courses rose above the water, she was pronounced to be a ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston



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



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