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Scant   /skænt/   Listen
Scant

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



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"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books



... it. The "Double Shuffle" is so typical of this dreary and ignoble warfare and it played so large a part in the political history of the time, that it has been necessary to describe it at some length. But for these considerations, the episode would have deserved scant notice. The headship of one of the ephemeral ministries that preceded confederation could add little to the reputation of Mr. Brown. His powers were not shown at their best in office, and the surroundings ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... rested, and Stewart and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left the ranch some time in the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a faint wind rustled the scant foliage of the cedars. The air ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... the Goth-folk, O Volsung Sons be wise, And reap the battle-acre that ripening for you lies: For 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! farewell ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... 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 ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... the rival candidates for 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 44,826 votes, while the Republicans cast 53,784 ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... order of succession, as the Senate recommended. But he still reserved the right of adopting the son of Louis and of thus favouring his chances of priority. Indeed, it must be admitted that the Emperor at this difficult crisis showed conjugal tact and affection, for which he has received scant justice at the hands of Josephine's champions. "How could I divorce this good wife," he said to Roederer, "because I am becoming great?" But fate seemed to decree the divorce, which, despite the reasonings of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... features individually, collectively they were distinctly pleasing. The impression one received was of a clean, straight-limbed, clear-eyed fellow, who, if he had worked with his hands, had won with his brain. He looked a little older than his twenty-eight years warranted, and a little taller than his scant five-feet-eleven proved. Above all, he appeared healthful, alert, capable, and kindly. He made friends at sight with men, children, and dogs and wore his friendships as easily as he wore his clothes. The West puts an indefinable stamp on a man, and ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... reading, was as a very general rule only within the reach of the few, of the privileged classes and those more or less dependent on their favour, with whom such ideals as those voiced by Winstanley would naturally meet with but scant consideration. Moreover, though we may be accused of pessimism or cynicism for saying so, it seems to us that the main reason why teachings such as Winstanley's must necessarily remain specially unpalatable and unwelcome so long as social and political ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... cloth so painted as to present a perspective of the city. He also speaks of a "cloth of the Sone and Mone." The use of such painted cloths was an important step toward modern scenery. We may, however, conclude that the scenery of any Elizabethan theater would have seemed scant to one accustomed to the detailed setting ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... were small, 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 moving onwards in the hope of meeting with some ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... I cannot remember a single instance of a person who is at one and the same time a really earnest and intelligent Socialist and an orthodox Christian. Those who do not openly attack the church and the fabric of Christianity, show but scant respect to either the one or the other in private.... And while all of us are thus indifferent to the church, many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx, Lassalle and Engels among earlier Socialists; Morris, Bax, Hyndman, Guesde and Bebel among present-day Socialists—are all more ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... inductive process of recognizing and stating true principles of the kinematics of mechanisms was proceeding through three generations of French, English, and finally German scholars, the actual design of mechanisms went ahead with scant regard for what the scholars were doing ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... stand high in the King's good graces, but they have no money, and are obliged to make a good show.—Again, you know the difficulties of the political situation. The aristocracy has to be rehabilitated in the face of a very strong force of the third estate. The King's idea—and France does him scant justice—is to create a peerage as a national institution analogous to the English peerage. To realize this grand idea we need years—and millions.—Noblesse oblige. The Duc de Navarreins, who is, as you know, first gentleman of the Bedchamber to the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... back now. But as matters are, one would tumble over the other. So forward, whatever it may cost. We are close on their heels. Halt! Halt! That accursed stinging smoke! Wait, you dogs! As soon as the pathway widens, we'll run you down with scant ceremony, and may the gods deprive me of a day of life for each one I spare! Another torch out! One can't see one's hand before one's face! At a time like this a beggar's crutch would be better than a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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 he saw, not the shadowy ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... absorbing spell of the pursuit as to acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces in the remote and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above their heads was that bleak verge where the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest-trees and either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. The roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if only a solitary ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; but, at ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... were empty of vehicles, except for a few cabs that followed the little group persistently. As yet there was no need of them. The crowd was made up, for the most part, of healthy, full-blooded boys, fresh from weeks of training, strong of body, and with stomachs like galvanized iron. They showed scant evidence of intoxication. As for the weakest member of the party, it had long been known that one drink made Higgins drunk, and all further libations merely served to maintain him in status quo. Exhaustive experiments ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... few minutes of a scant quarter-hour to spare, I would not have any one miss seeing the cloister, from which the Catholic Kings used to enter the church by the gallery to those balcony capitals, but which the common American ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... was represented; the 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 ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... they were out of sight. The dream gave way to bitter and wild thoughts, upon which it will do none of us any good to dwell. He put down the little girl outside the schools, turning abruptly from the mother, a poor widow in scant, well-preserved black clothes who was waiting for the child, and began thanking him for his care of her; refused Grey's pressing invitation to tea, and set his face eastward. Bitterer and more wild and more ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... brought with him, Jacques bade him plant them on a neighboring grave, newly dug, the poor grave of some poor creature, without any border and having no other memorial over it than a piece of wood stuck in the ground and surmounted by a crown of flowers in blackened paper, the scant offering of some pauper's grief. Jacques left the cemetery in quite a different frame of mind to what he had entered it. He looked with happy curiosity at the bright spring sunshine, the same that had so ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... White was born and his father's servant, Edward Thompson, died. Dorothy May Bradford, the girl-wife of the later Governor of the colony, was drowned during his absence. There were murmurings and threats against the leaders by some of the crew and others who were impatient at the long voyage, scant comforts and uncertain future. Possibly some of the complaints came from women, but in the hearts of most of them, although no women signed their names, was the resolution that inspired the men who signed that compact in the cabin of The Mayflower,—"to promise all ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble

... some Portuguese came to Acheen on an embassy from the governor of Malacca to the king; and as the wind was scant, they landed three leagues to the east of Acheen road. I immediately sent the Hosiander, of which I appointed Edward Christian captain, to go in search of the bark from Malacca, which was brought to me on the 17th: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... of Port San Agustin nor to the Manbos of the Libagnon River and its tributaries, nor to the Manbos that occupy the hinterland above Nasipit as far as the Bugbus River. I had only cursory dealings with the inhabitants of the last-named region but both from my own scant observations and from the reports of others more familiar with them, I am inclined to believe that there may be differences great enough to distinguish them from the other peoples of the Agsan Valley as a ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... antique interiors as a bric-a-brac cabinet. In an upper story of one of these subdivided houses Rob Riley and his wife, Henrietta, have two old-fashioned rooms; the front room is large and airy, with a carved mantelpiece, the back room small and cosy. The furniture is rather plain and scant, for Rob has not yet got to be a great engineer working on his own account. At present he is one of those little fish that the big fish are made to eat—an obscure man whose brains are carried up to the credit of his chief. But he is ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... the mother, as though she were as much outraged as astonished. She was seated in the door, patching, by the waning light, an old pair of mud-spattered trousers, her own dress being very old-fashioned, coarse, and scanty,—so scant, in fact, as to reveal the angles of her form with ungraceful definiteness, especially the knees, that were almost suggestive of a skeleton, and now, as she put herself in position, as it were, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... as leaders love to fall, In battle's forefront, loved and mourned by all; But fiercely fighting, as for his own hand, With the scant remnant of a broken band; His chieftainship, well-earned in many a fray, Rent from him—by himself! None did betray This sinister strong fighter to his foes; He fell by his own action, as he rose. He had fought all—himself he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various

... sincerity has been preserved. "Amours" seems to be the first one of a series of plays dealing with the reverse of the gay picture presented in "Anatol." A young man is having a love affair with two women at the same time, one of them married, the other one a young girl with scant knowledge of the world. Yet she knows enough to know what she is doing, and she has sufficient strength of mind to rise above a sense of guilt, though she is more prone to be the victim of fear. Then the married woman's husband challenges the young man, who is ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... which clumsy and unsightly creations have been and are being worked off upon an ingenuous public at prices proportioned to their degrees of ugliness. In colonial times many an humble carpenter vainly scratched his noggin as he puzzled over the hopeless problem of duplicating with rude tools and scant skill the handiwork that graced the lordly mansions of merrie England; to-day some wight who can scarcely distinguish a jackplane from a saw-buck essays to "express himself" (at our expense) in furniture, repeating all the gaucheries that ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... modern, but bearing unmistakable proof of long service and exposure to sun and rain; old round-toed shoes, the top-leathers of which had survived more soles than the wearer had outlived souls of his early friends and companions; a scant white vest, ruffled shirt, and voluminous white cravat, completed the costume of this singular gentleman, who, with his ancient blue silk umbrella under his arm, and his fierce eye fixed on some imaginary goal ahead, made his way through the struggling crowds which poured ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... you? Why, 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

... invitation to call with disdain, and turned the messengers of Lorenzo away with scant courtesy. Instead of joining hands with Lorenzo he preached a sermon at the Cathedral, bitterly arraigning the aristocracy, prophesying their speedy downfall, and beseeching all men who wished to be saved to turn, repent, make restitution and secure ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... again 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 ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... fat and scant of breath. It did not take him very long to conclude that he had had enough, especially when he heard the hoofs behind him. It was sad, for close before him was the shade of the trees and the murmur of the river; but discretion is ever the better part of valour, particularly if one be not ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... or within mansions built of bricks and stone or on rugged stones or on ashes or bare stones or on the bare earth or on beds or on battlefields or in water or in mire or on wooden planks or on diverse kinds of beds; or impelled by desire of fruits, he regards himself as clad in a scant piece of cloth made of grass or as totally nude or as robed in silk or in skin of the black antelope or in cloth made of flax or in sheep-skin or in tiger-skin or in lion-skin or in fabric of hemp, or in barks of birch or in cloths made of the produce of prickly plants, or in vestures made of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... evil-looking marched shoulder to shoulder for blocks, no gaps except intersecting streets. Fire-escapes ran zigzag down the meanest of them. Women shouted their neighborhood jargon from windows flung momentarily open. Poverty scuttled along close to the scant shelter of these houses. An old man, with a beard to his chest, paused in a doorway to cough, and it was like the gripe-gripe of a saw with its teeth in hard wood. A woman sold apples from a stoop, the form of a child showing through ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... the South just after the war, said, "A veritable reign of terror prevailed in many parts of the South. The Negro found scant justice in the local courts against the white man. He could look for protection only to the military forces of the United States still garrisoning the states lately in rebellion and to the Freedmen's Bureau."[98] This ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... whip, and leaped off the reach of the rigging. Prompt with the loosened lines the team came to a full stop; and Felipe, snatching up a blanket, covered his head and shoulders with it and squatted in the scant protection ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... not sure but some of us regard 'Aunt Hannah' with scant favor, occasionally," he laughed; "something as if she were the dragon that guarded the princess, you know. Miss Billy IS popular with the men, and she has suitors enough to turn any ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... 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 far away. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... pleasing-looking, neatly-dressed, elderly lady, to the two scant yards of starch and dickey behind Stephens' slab of marble ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... politics; for Cuvier in his own realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst of excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religion and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... could 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 rough lot. The wind was fair, and the canoe towed ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... were long ones to Philip, who had scant patience with the querulous old aunt. But Amanda, since she had glimpsed the girlhood romance of the woman, had a kindlier feeling for her and could smile at the faultfinding or at least run away from it without retort if it became ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... add to the credit of former days. If they were characterized by selfishness, by politics, by a balancing of expediency against justice they will be counted as a time of ignominy for which a victorious war would furnish scant compensation. ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... life, That went unto the war, But thither, whence a warrior went of old, Doth nought return— Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn! For Ares, lord of strife, Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold, War's money-changer, giving dust for gold, Sends back, to hearts that held them dear, Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear, Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul; Yea, fills the light urn full With what survived the flame— Death's dusty measure of ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... woman out of patience—and that is the sole dramatic element. Nevertheless, by sheer wit interest is maintained to the end, every one smiling over the rival claims of such veteran humbugs as the old-time pardoner and apothecary; scant reverence does 'Pothecary vouchsafe to Pardoner's potent relics, his 'of All Hallows the blessed jaw-bone', his 'great toe of the Trinity', his 'buttock-bone of Pentecost', and the rest. One of the raciest passages occurs in the Pardoner's relation of the wonders he ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... And she knew it. So there was nothing for it but to forget the ache, and make the hour happy. But how about that other truth—that in love there is no pause, no resting? . . . With any watering, however scant, the flower will grow till its time comes to be plucked. . . . This oasis in the desert—these few minutes with her alone, were swept through and through with a feverish wind. To be closer! How not try to be that? How not long for her lips ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Mrs. Brandeis took a scant half hour to walk the six blocks between the store and the house, to snatch a hurried dinner, and traverse the distance to the store again. It was a program that would have killed a woman less magnificently healthy and determined. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... my tenants oppressed and robbed, my retainers dismissed, save only thee, my poor faithful Anne; and in return I am to wed him to boot! Nay! Rather will I take the veil and give all my goods to the convent of St. Agatha at Torton; though thou knowest I have scant mind to ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... sugar, 1 egg, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, 2 scant cups of flour sifted with 1 heaping teaspoonful baking powder, 1/2 teaspoonful extract of lemon or vanilla, 1 cup of milk; rub butter and flour together, add the sugar, milk, and egg; mix into a batter, butter ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke

... Fort Snelling seems to have left an account of what was included in the tasks and recreations of a day. Doubtless the routine duties repeated day after day were thought too ordinary to be worth recording. The pleasures were so simple and came so much as a matter of course that they also receive scant mention in the annals of the fort. It is from the General Regulations for the Army that one gets the daily program of a military post; and the few fragmentary pages of Taliaferro's diary and letters, together with the stray ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... is limited by a man's capacity for it; and some men seem to have very scant capacity for God. It is not easy to establish a point of contact between a Falstaff or a Becky Sharp and the Father of Jesus Christ. There is no community of interest or kinship of spirit. "Faith is assurance of things hoped for;" and where there is no craving for God, He is likely ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

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

... Jarvis Islands: equatorial; scant rainfall, constant wind, burning sun Johnston Atoll and Kingman Reef: tropical, but generally dry; consistent northeast trade winds with little seasonal temperature variation Midway Islands: subtropical with cool, moist winters (December to February) and warm, dry summers (May to ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long boots, and frock-coats with large metal buttons; the women, straw hats, and gay calico gowns, with short waists and scant folds. They were adorned with a profusion of great, trumpery ornaments, and reminded Flemming of the Indians in the frontier villages of America. Near the churchyard-gate was a booth, filled with flaunting calicos; and opposite sat an old woman behind a table, which ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... avoided in summer for sanitary reasons; and even our staples, beef and mutton, vary in quality. The flesh of healthy animals is hard and fresh colored, the fat next the skin is firm and thick, and the suet or kidney-fat clear white and abundant; if this fat is soft, scant and stringy, the animal has been poorly fed or overworked. Beef should be of a bright red color, well marbled with yellowish fat, and surrounded with a thick outside layer of fat; poor beef is dark red, and full of gristle, and the fat is scant and oily. Mutton is bright red, with ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... along somehow," said Mrs McQueen. "We always have, though 'tis true it's been scant fare we've had now ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... out what a vote actually meant. It must be recalled that I was only twenty-one years old, with scant education, and with no civic agency offering me the information I was seeking. I went to the headquarters of each of the political parties and put my query. I was ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... death, feeling she had grief enough to bear without it, but for all that, it troubled him seriously. The income from his practice was scarcely enough to clothe him and not likely to increase, for Sandgate had scant use for a lawyer; and what to do, or which way to turn, he knew not. If it were not for Alice and Aunt Susan he thought it would be easier, but they must be provided for. Alice, who had been his companion, playmate, and confidant since the days of short dresses, he especially cared for, and that ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... operating in the State as their mileage there bore to their total mileage. In Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway Company,[672] a sharply divided Court upheld the tax on the basis of its designation, giving scant attention to its apportionment feature. Said Justice Field for the majority: "The privilege of exercising the franchises of a corporation within a State is generally one of value, and often of great value, and the subject of earnest contention. It is natural, therefore, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... of rechas, or sacred stone figures of Brahmin and Buddhist origin, in the garden of the Dutch Residency, shows the scant care bestowed on the ancient temples, for years used as mere quarries of broken statuary, and still receiving inadequate recognition as historical remains, though Sir Stamford Raffles a century ago realised the supreme importance of Javanese sculpture ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... not come to see his mother for an old familiar talk, because his wife either comes with him, or expects him to be at home. He has no time for his mother's interests or his mother's friends; there is scant welcome in his home for her, because between them has come an alien presence which never ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... we sallied out to see the sights. We walked across the public square, down to the fortifications, and there gathered some beautiful yellow flowers, which I pressed. We saw plenty of natives in their scant dresses. One little black fellow I was particularly amused with. He had on a little blue shirt, which his mother had tied up in a knot in the middle of his back; and there he was enjoying his mud pies, and keeping ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... 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 deal; and so it happened that one day the colonel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... they were crowding through a low, narrow passage, the earthen sides of which reeked with moisture. Twice they paused to rest, resuming the journey after a season of cursing, finally depositing him with scant courtesy upon the rocky floor of what proved to be a rather commodious cave. The breath was almost jarred from his body. He had the satisfaction of driving his two heels viciously against the person of the man who had held ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... lower'd with all the haste of hate, With its slight plank between thee and thy fate; Her only cargo such a scant supply As promises the death their hands deny; And just enough of water and of bread To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, and twine. But treasures all to hermits of the brine, Were added after, to the earnest ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... until the sun was at the meridian, and the heat became almost intolerable. Even the toughened old scout was compelled to shelter himself as best he could from its intolerable rays, by seeking the scant shadow of jutting points of the rock. Ned Chadmund suffered much, and the roiled and warm water in the old canteen was quaffed again, even though they were compelled to tip it more and more, until, toward the close of the day, Dick held it mouth downward, ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... general scuffle for seats, with bitter complaints that he only had two pointed knees. Maria was treated with scant respect. There was also criticism of life—that he had no lap, "no proper lap," that it was too dark to see his face, that everybody in turn had got "the best place," but, chiefly, that there was "very little time." Time was ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... 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 than I did at first, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... the Legislature of Massachusetts effaced the last vestige of State ownership by giving the Vanderbilts a perpetual lease of this richly profitable railroad for a scant two million dollars' payment a year. During the debate over this act Representative Dean charged in the Legislature that "it is common rumor in the State House that members are receiving $300 apiece for their votes." The acquisition of this railroad enabled ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... monsoon; cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... "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 scale; to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... compared to the amount on which many a talented fellow subsists, spending his best years in a foul atmosphere of paint and tobacco, ill fed, ill clothed, scarcely warmed at all, often sick in mind and body, attaining his first scant measure of success just as his ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... old age had overtaken him. Four years before he had spent a summer at Big Malcolm's, helping perfunctorily in the harvest fields, working little and singing much, and when the first hard frost had set the forest aflame he had gathered his poor, scant bundle of clothes into his carpet-bag preparatory to taking ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... fears even these late successes; it were best to veil their heads. The strong as such had ever been against her and hers. The father came again; noted the boy's growth. Manliest of men, like Hercules in his cloak of lion's skin, he has after all but scant liking, feels, through a certain meanness of soul, scorn for the finer likeness of himself. Might this creature of an already vanishing world, who for all his hard rearing had a manifest distinction of character, one day become his rival, full of [175] loyalty as he was already ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... have been, even for those days, a cultivated man. The studies of youth are but the preparation for the culture of manhood; and after his three quiet years at Saint Andrews were done, his leisure for study must have been scant indeed. But all we know of his character, temperament, and habits of life forbid the supposition that he wasted that precious time either in idleness or indulgence. His bitterest enemies have borne witness to his singular freedom from those vices which his age regarded more as the characteristics ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... lips, her eyes called back their fire. Helbeck looked at her in a delight mingled with pain, counting the weeks silently till she became his very own. Only five now before Advent; and in the fifth the Church would give her to him, grudgingly indeed, with scant ceremony and festivity, like a mother half grieved, still with her blessing, which must content him. And beyond? The strong man—stern with himself and his own passion, all the more that the adored one was under ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... indeed, Spanish, one-story, its dormers hidden by a honeycombed screen of terra-cotta tiles. This screen was set on the extreme edge of the roof which overhung the banquette and shaded the yellow adobe wall of the house. Low, unpretentious, the latticed shutters of its two windows giving it but a scant air of privacy,—indeed, they were scarred by the raps of careless passers-by on the sidewalk. The two little battened doors, one step up, were closed. I rapped, waited, and rapped again. The musician across the street stopped his fiddling, glanced at me, smiled knowingly at the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a cold bite, brought ready packed from the Richmond tavern. The horses were given scant time for feeding, and drank wherever they could ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... The evening, though sunless, had been warm and muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with her milking-hood only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not dressed for a drive. She therefore replied by glancing over her scant habiliments; but Clare gently urged her. She assented by relinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to take home, and ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... for the getting of love—loving more the cold grip of gold than the grip of kith or kin, yet bear buried in their hearts the seeds of a nobler manhood, for which, however, the barren soil of their ambition affords scant nourishment. ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

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

... now, vividly as if it were only yesterday. We were at our scant breakfast, I as blue as was ever even twenty-five, she brave and confident. And hers was no mere pretense to reassure me, no cheerless optimism of ignorance, but the through-and-through courage and strength of those who flinch for no bogey that life or death ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... been made by some of the missionaries in Japan to convert the Ainos to Christianity, but I fear the attempts made in this direction have been attended with a very scant measure of success. A people such as this possesses minds of childlike simplicity, and to endeavour to get it to comprehend the abstruse doctrines and dogmas of Christianity is an almost hopeless task. The climate of Yesso is such as to render it possible for missionary efforts to take place ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... 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 ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... That is, if you don't walk so fast. You see, here there are no views that can give one an excuse for stopping to take breath. You would think it romantic to be walking with a person "fat and scant o' breath" if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Have compassion on my infirmities ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... which has left us the 'bus—but oh, in what scant and shabby measure!—has left us, too, the weather that so densely yet so congruously "goes with it"—the weather adequately enough denoted by the thick atmosphere, the slimy pavements, the omnipresent unfurled umbrella and the stout, elderly woman intent upon ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... manuscripts of Celsus. Not only was he acquainted with the principal philosophical schools of antiquity, he appears also to have studied zealously the religions of the ancient world as they were known at that time to the learned, especially in Alexandria, of which we have but scant knowledge. Origen expressly states (I, 14) that Celsus described the various peoples who possessed religious and philosophical systems, because he supposed that all these views bore a certain relationship to one another. Without a doubt much ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... sound on the stairway, and Peace had just time to slip into her place again when the strains of the piano began the measured notes of stately Lohengrin. From somewhere Dr. Race and the minister appeared and took their places beneath the canopy of wild roses, but Peace paid scant attention to them. Her eyes were glued upon the other end of the corridor where the bridal procession was already approaching, with Essie Martin in the lead, and—could it be?—yes, it was golden-haired, radiant Allee marching ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... expected to be ushered into some princely dwelling, for he had judged his interlocutor to be some rich and eccentric noble, unless he were an erratic scamp. He was somewhat taken aback by the spectacle that met his eyes. The furniture was scant, and all in the style of the last century. The dust lay half an inch thick on the old gilded ornaments and chandeliers. A great pier-glass was cracked from corner to corner, and the metallic backing seemed to be scaling off behind. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... of unusually large size, with sword dangling at his side, came bounding from our right at a full run. A large log a few steps in our rear was his goal as a place of safety, and over it he leaped and was instantly concealed behind it. He had scant time to adjust himself before the log was struck a crashing blow by a solid shot. He reappeared as part of the upheaval; but, regaining his feet, broke for the woods with the speed of a quarterhorse, and a greater confidence in distance ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... up in virtue, learning and in the English tongue and behaviour, to the great charge of the said houses; that is to say, the woman kind of the whole Englishry of this land, for the more part, in the said nunnery, and the man kind in the other said houses."[35] This petition received but scant consideration, and no wonder; because, although the Archbishop of Dublin had agreed to it, he wrote on the same day to Cromwell asking him for the lands of Grace-Dieu,[36] and, according to a letter ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... scant he lays him on the floor, When hollow winds remove the door, A trembling rocks the ground: And (well I ween to count aright) At once an hundred tapers light On all ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... room a scant dozen of men, and as I ran them over with my eye the best I could say for their quality in life was that they had not troubled the tailor of late. Most of them were threadbare at elbow and would have looked the better of a good ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... 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

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

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

... ground. "Take them into the waiting-room, and see that they don't escape while I examine the car. There may be more of the gang hidden in there," commanded the station agent. So to the waiting-room the prisoners were hustled with scant ceremony. As yet no one knew what they had done, nor even what they were charged with doing; but every one agreed that they were two of the toughest looking young villains ever seen in that part ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... of providing the human machine with fuel; she made an effort to disguise the scant flavour of the best-looking bits she could pick out by eating plenty of bread. She had swallowed one or two mouthfuls and already felt better for the nourishment, when her eye fell on a girl seated nearly opposite to her, whom she had not noticed before. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... finiteness, finite quantity. V. be small &c. adj.; lie in a nutshell. diminish &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, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small; atomic, corpuscular, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... dejection insensibly relieved and his vague hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear, implying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes, buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the while, Vholes's official cat watches ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... prince had by this time gone; the woman did not step forth. This lame and impotent conclusion was out of all proportion to the seemingly inevitable. He could scarcely realize it was he—actually he!—who, after another pause, followed the officer, with scant interest, hardly any at all, to some inferno where flames leaped ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Princes of the ancient orders of the land of Khem—Nobles from the Upper and the Lower Country, have gathered in answer to my summons, hear me: I present to you, with such scant formality as the occasion can afford, the Prince Harmachis, by right and true descent of blood the descendant and heir of the ancient Pharaohs of our most unhappy land. He is priest of the inmost circle of the Mysteries of the Divine Isis, Master of the Mysteries—Hereditary ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... followed, Kearn Thode pondered long and deeply upon his trust. The arrangement with his sister would be an easy matter to adjust, he knew, but the immediate task confronting him was more difficult of solution. The suggestion of a guardian thrust upon her would meet with scant complacency in the girl's independent spirit and secretly he quailed before the thought of her displeasure. Her comrades of a lifetime, the rough, staunch men of Limasito, might well resent the intrusion of a stranger, an alien, into what was evidently to them a family affair; ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... a delusion and a snare. He has no interest except his wages, and he is a breeder of discontent. If the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men who are working for scant wages in cities, or inanely tramping the country, could see the dignity of the labor which is directly productive, what a change would come over the face of the country! There are nearly six million ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... soul, away! In vain, in vain, the birds of warning sing— And hark! I hear the famin'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my Soul, away! I unpartaking of the evil thing, With daily prayer, and daily toil Soliciting my scant and blameless soil, Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. Now I recenter my immortal mind In the long sabbath of high self-content; Cleans'd from the fleshly Passions that bedim God's Image, Sister of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... who would translate this love-lyric for the ear as well as for the mind finds himself handicapped by the limitations of our English speech—its scant supply of those orotund vowel sounds which flow forth with their full freight of breath in such words as a-lo-ha, po-li, and a-nu-a-nu. These vocables belong to the very genius ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... I remembered the plentiful blame and the scant praise which it had often fallen to my lot to receive ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... But is it not better than the simple drum and fife of a common training-day? The "full brass band," we must recollect, is too expensive a luxury except for the most extraordinary occasions, and even then we run the risk of hearing "Highland Mary" repeated all day long, so scant is the repertoire. The regiment, headed by the cavalry and the music, passes the colonel and his staff. The music wheels out of the line, gives "three cheers," and remains at the colonel's side till the regiment has returned to its place. A hollow square is formed, in imitation of the great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... these animals 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

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

... too much a son, [Embracing him. And I too little am a father: you, And you alone, have merited Lucretia; 'Tis now my only grief, I can do nothing to requite this virtue: For to restore her to you, Is not an act of generosity, But a scant, niggard justice; yet I love her So much, that even this little, which I do, Is like the bounty of an usurer; High to be priz'd from me, Because 'tis drawn ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... which year after year she wore in one form or another. It varied according to the season, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had certain unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as to line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, a waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching just below the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, though not at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with a dark, shapely head gallantly poised ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... age we find it difficult to account for the prestige of Thurlow. His legal learning was far from profound, his speeches were more ponderous than powerful, and his attacks were bludgeon blows rather than home thrusts. Of the lighter graces and social gifts he had scant store. Indeed, his private life displayed no redeeming feature. Everyone disliked him, but very many feared him, mainly, perhaps, because of his facility for intrigue, his power of bullying, and his great influence at ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had read in the newspaper, he stops ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... and bent his bow carelessly and sent his shaft whizzing toward the wand, missing it by a scant inch. He of the horse-hide followed with more care yet was a good three-fingers' breadth away. On the second round, the stranger led off and landed cleverly within the small garland at the top of the wand; but ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... AI Lab, BBN, CMU, XEROX PARC, and the Unix community, one of the major wellsprings of technical innovation and hacker-culture traditions (see the {{WAITS}} entry for details). The SAIL machines were shut down in late May 1990, scant weeks after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially decommissioned. 2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used at SAIL (sense 1). It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining facility and some new data types intended for building ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... more of Juno than of Venus, and freely endowed with the languorous temperament and the splendid earthy loveliness which grows nowhere but under tropical skies and in the shadow of palm groves and the flame of cactus flowers. She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but a poor hostess, and after dinner carried her cousin away to the billiard-room, and left her husband to entertain the Rev. Ambrose and the detective as best he could. Cleek ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... sending of two special embassies to Louis, who was now at Doesburg, and to London, to sue for peace. They left the Hague on June 13, only to meet with a humiliating rebuff. Charles II refused to discuss the question apart from France. Pieter de Groot and his colleagues were received at Doesburg with scant courtesy and sent back to the Hague to seek for fuller powers. When they arrived they found the council-pensionary lying on a sick-bed. The country's disasters had been attributed to the De Witts, and the strong feeling against them led to a double attempt ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... taste of what we should have done if we had ventured forward with a scant wind and uncertain weather, and gave us a surfeit of our design for the main, at least until we might have some better vessels under us; so we went on shore again, and pitched our camp as before, in as convenient manner ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... clouds, while the sailors whistled shrilly for a breeze. 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 the sentry ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... flushed, and his 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 ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... Paradise and leads to it. I never was half so happy before I was a married man as I am now. When you are married, your bliss begins. I have no doubt that where there is much love there will be much to love, and where love is scant faults will be plentiful. If there is only one good wife in England, I am the man who put the ring on her finger, and long may she wear it. God bless the dear soul, if she can put up with me, she shall never ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... There is scant need for the apologia which precedes the letters; a few pages dispels the fear that we are prying into another's soul. As for the authorship, there is a woman's influence, an artist's poorly concealed bias in ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

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

... Coban, in Vera Paz, and came again to his people, looking to be received with fitting honors. But like Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, and others of these worthies, the story goes that they treated him with scant courtesy, and in anger at their ingratitude, he left them forever, in order to ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... beard hangs down! Scant are the white hairs on your crown: How wan and hollow are your cheeks! Your brow is rough with crossing breaks; But yet, for all his strength is fled, I love ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... 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 grew almost to hate. For ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

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

... times are hard we're scant o' cash, And famine hungry bellies lash And tripe and trollabobble's trash Begin to fail— Asteead o' soups an' oxtail 'ash, Hail! herring, hail! Full monny a time 'tas made me groan To see thee stretched, despised, alone; ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... book forms was current in Mexico before the Conquest. As in the case of the Chinese book, it looks superficially like ours; we think it is a tiny quarto until we see that its measure is rather that of an oblong twenty-fourmo; that is, its dimensions are just scant of five inches high and six inches wide. It has thin wooden covers and is, over all, an inch thick; but between these covers is a strip of deerskin twenty-nine feet long and, of course, nearly five inches wide. This is folded in screen or fan fashion, the first and last leaves ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

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

... interpreted literally. Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought—thought being incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere—and so forth; all of which seemed to come to this in the end, that it was the custom of the country, and ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... Menelek was obliged to submit and do obeisance to John. The latter behaved with much generosity, but at the same time imposed terms which effectually deprived Shoa of her independence (March 1878). In 1879 Gordon was sent on a fresh mission to John on behalf of Egypt; but he was treated with scant courtesy, and was obllgcd to leave the country without achieving ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... are set amid the rocks, and are quite bulky, the walls composed of grasses and the lining consisting of soft feathers. In order to procure the grasses required, they must descend at least to the belt of scant vegetation just below the region of bare rocks and boulders. Where they get the downy feathers for the carpet of their nurseries I have not been able to ascertain. No nest has yet been discovered ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... was one of the ten children of a peasant proprietor at Ahaderg in county Down. The family to which he belonged inherited strength, good looks, and a few scant acres of potato-growing soil. They must have been very poor, those ten children, often hungry, cold and wet; but these adverse influences only seemed to brace the sinews of Patrick Prunty and to nerve his determination to rise above his surroundings. He grew up a ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... two strings to your bow. Dancing, you see, is all very well, provided you are not too ambitious of appearing on first nights, but, unhappily, that was the case with me. I was as slender as a thread when I was twenty, and very agile, but I grew fat and scant of breath, and became rather heavy in my steps; so when my mother died, as I had my diploma as a midwife, I took her apartment and her business, and I added the title of "Midwife to the Opera," for all their business comes to me. They like me ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... the comfort had brought me, Fair queen of the ring, thy embrace! Go, mate with the man of thy choosing, Scant mirth will he get of thy grace! Be dearer henceforth to thy dastard, False dame of the coif, than to me;— I have spoken the word; I have sung it;— I have said my last ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... nearest course, that people of this remote day possessed the secret of driving a golf ball three and a half miles, and he will perhaps moralize upon the degeneracy of his own times, when the longest drive will doubtless not exceed a scant mile. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... vision of them than most men. Into Fleet Street, each day brings an endless stream of "news items," not only from all parts of the world, but from every town and city in the kingdom. And your journalist, though he may have scant leisure for its digestion, absorbs the whole of this mass of intelligence each day in the process of conveying one-tenth part of it, in tabloid ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... led to the dearest hotels and restaurants; his expenses became formidable and soon outran his large earnings. For the first time since I had known him he borrowed heedlessly right and left, and had, therefore, to bring forth play after play with scant time for thought. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... densely covered by the forest. As already stated, they were first discovered by Europeans about forty years after the war of the conquest swept through that part of the country, and were at that time wholly mysterious to the natives. The monuments seem older than those at Palenque, but we have only scant descriptions of them. They are situated in a wild and solitary part of the country, where the natives "see as little of strangers as the Arabs about Mount Sinai, and are more suspicious." For this reason ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... time on his own scant meals, But goes forth with the morning sun; Never a moment is wasted Till his long day's ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... 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 had never heard of John ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... in 1837 appears to be the best to-day. On the subject of Touraine Stendhal is extremely refreshing; he finds the scenery meagre and much overrated, and proclaims his opinion with perfect frankness. He does, however, scant justice to the banks of the Loire; his want of appreciation of the picturesque—want of the sketcher's sense—causes him to miss half the charm of a landscape which is nothing if not "quiet," as a painter would ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... my bag, and left it with as many wrinkles as a bridegroom's pocket-handkerchief. The person who was charged with the collection of the money, hastened to track my steps; I was taken, and met with but scant indulgence; only, in consideration of my youth, their worships the judges contented themselves with introducing me to the acquaintance of the whipping-post, to have the flies whisked from my shoulders for a certain time, and commanding me to abstain from revisiting ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

... came a great noise of trumpets and hautboys and drums, and the great pageant came streaming up towards Ludgate, a troop of Oliver's own Body-guard on iron-grey chargers clearing the way, which they did with scant respect for the lives and limbs of the crowd, and with very little scruple either in bruising the Trainbands with their horses' hoofs and the flat of their broadswords. As Arabella leant forward to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... moment towards his companion's face. Once or twice he rearranged the light waterproof which he had slung over one shoulder in toreador fashion. His breeches, his white rubber shoes and his jauntily slung waterproof expressed youth. But his figure fell into rotundity at the waist, his hair was scant and grey and his face, when the waves of expression had passed over it, had ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... poles that they did not harmonize well together. In the old days, with visions of parties at Rotherwood, Beatrice had at least been civil, but now that there seemed no further prospect of being asked to pleasant entertainments, she had turned round and treated Ingred with scant politeness in general, and sometimes with deliberate rudeness. Little things that perhaps we laugh at afterwards, hurt very much at the time, and Ingred was passing through an ultra sensitive phase. During the latter part of that autumn term she ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil



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



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