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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



... Vance rested with me overnight in a cabin. We had scant food for ourselves or for the mare we led. It was thirty-five miles to the next cabin; we must reach that place or lie out in the snow. So a very early start was made before daybreak, while the wind lay. The good woman of the cabin ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... form'd most Nobly and Great; When Heaven survey'd the Works that it had done, Saw Male and Female, but found Man alone, A baren Sex, and Insignificant, } Then God made Woman to supply the want, } And to make perfect which before was scant. } The Word no sooner spoke, but it was done; 'Cause 'twas not fit for Man to be alone; It was not in his power without a Wife, To reap the happy Fruites of human Life; Nay, more than this, Mankind long since had ceas'd, And now had been surviv'd by senceless Beast, ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous

... length of time, or longer, to a lecture, a sermon, or a debate, I have imagined that a theatrical performance could not become fatiguing in the same time. As early as 1872, in one of my first dramatic experiments, "The Outlaw," I tried the same concentrated form, but with scant success. The play was written in five acts and wholly completed when I became aware of the restless, scattered effect it produced. Then I burned it, and out of the ashes rose a single, well-built act, covering fifty printed pages, and taking ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... saluting and bowing low, conducted the other dignitary to the cabin, with the officers trailing after them. For the moment, Major Starland found his situation a trifle embarrassing. General Yozarro scowled savagely at him, but the others paid scant attention. There was some crowding, for it will be remembered that the apartment was of slight size. The American waited till a lull came in the conversation and then, with an elaborate ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... somewhat depressing. We remained at the island for three days, and during our stay our crew of South Sea Islanders literally filled our decks with fish, turtle and birds' eggs. Curiously enough, in our scant library on board the little trading vessel I came across portion of a narrative of a voyage in a South Seaman, written by her surgeon, a Mr Bennett, in 1838,{*} and our captain and myself were much interested in the accurate description he gave of Christmas Island ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... reappears in the last paragraph of that story. But, so far as we can know at this day, nothing definite was done until after his departure for Italy. It was then, while staying in Rome, that he began to put upon paper that plot which had first occupied his thoughts three years before, in the scant leisure allowed him by his duties at the Liverpool consulate. Of leisure there was not a great deal at Rome, either; for, as the "French and Italian Note-Books" show, sight-seeing and social intercourse took up a good deal of his time, and the ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to put forth his hand and take it. The skilled housewife makes wonderful provision against winter from the opulence of summer, and her storehouse is crowded with innumerable glass cells rich in the spoils of orchard and garden. There is scant use for the grocer and the butcher under such conditions. I am so well convinced that my estimate of $5 a month is liberal that I have taxed the account with all the salt used ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... To tame rude nature in her drearest forms; Foodless and guideless, thro that waste of earth, You march'd long months; and, sore reduced by dearth, Reach'd the proud capital, too feeble far To tempt unaided such a task of war; Till now Montgomery's host, with hopes elate, Joins your scant powers, to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... artifice consisted in finally taking advantage of my excess of virtue. After a few weeks of self-torture, over-fatigue, scant food, little sleep and insufficient clothing, I naturally fell ill, and the kind Tenders family would not hear of it that I should be tended elsewhere than in ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... that I ought to let them have the four and a half per cents. at par, as some had been put to the people at that. I desired a premium of three per cent. They finally met me half way, and gave one and a half premium. In short, we get a very little scant of 103 currency for those bonds, for the syndicate pays over to us ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... eyes brightened as the strongly marked brows frowned over them, while he replied: "Yes, Fred, I have seen old women more miserable than that. I have seen women so old that their tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy, that you would have shrunk from touching it—I have seen such groping about among heaps of filth that the very dogs looked at, and turned ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... to say clere, darke plentuous or scant, whiche is to understande quadri-partite, cest a dire clere, obscure habondante et rare, qui est ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... almost every source of intimate knowledge of the boy, who was a mature man at twenty-two, has left the record of the early period curiously scant. Fortunately, there are in his letters and speeches some casual allusions to his childhood and youth, and a few facts and anecdotes of the period from members of his family, from school, college, and early newspaper associates. In 1888, the story ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... be more interested in visiting Robin Hays than in noting the preparations made and the order observed by the Protector for his intended journey. When Cromwell put his state upon him, he did it with all dignity; there was no sparing of expense, no scant of attendants, no lack of guards—boldly and bravely were his arrangements formed; for he wisely knew that plainness and simplicity, although they may be understood and appreciated by the high-minded, are held in contempt by the low and the uneducated, because imagined to be within their own attainment. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... beside the panting ammunition horse. Then at last came the order for the advance, the order so eagerly awaited by Weldon, maddened by his long exposure to the bullets of his unseen foe. In extended order, the squadrons galloped forward until their goal was a scant five hundred yards away, when of a sudden a murderous fire broke out from the rocks in front of them, emptying many a saddle and dropping many a horse. Under such conditions, safety lay only in an ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... and thus there had been no audible rush of the waters until they reached this point, where they poured in and filled this great basin, the lower end of which was probably stopped up by accumulations of sand and deposits, which even in that country of scant vegetation had accumulated in the course of years. When the waters of the lake had rushed into the amphitheatre, this natural dam had held them for a while, but then, giving way before the great pressure, the whole body of water had suddenly rushed ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... of success apparently at his feet, so unsatisfying, so ironical are the conditions of life, that he was conscious of a something to damp the anticipatory delights of that success. Those long, solitary tramps over the veldt after scant coveys of partridge, or the stealthy stalk of wild duck at some vlei, were very conducive to introspection; that wealth which he imagined within his grasp did not now look so all-in-all sufficing, and yet he had deemed it the end and all-in-all of life. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... may remark that Mr. Delepierre does very scant justice to many of the interesting questions which he discusses. It is to be regretted that he has not thought it worth while to argue his points more thoroughly, and that he has not been more careful in making statements of fact. He sometimes makes strange blunders, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... getting rapidly thinner. So scant was it on the exposed Upsala plain that we fully expected being obliged to leave our sleds on the way. Even before reaching Upsala, our postillions chose the less-travelled field-roads whenever they led in the same direction, and beyond that town we were charged additional ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... Polly ate a scant meal, and washed the few dishes. Then she thought of Patricia. Softly shutting the door of the living-room, she went to ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... In one part or another of the hall I met his mother. She was dark and lean; without being tall, she looked gaunt. She seemed occupied with herself, as she moved out of one shadow into another, and she gave scant attention to a casual boy. Raymond was really no more hospitable than any young and growing organism must be; but perhaps she was thankful that it was only one boy, instead of ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

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

... guessed it!" he called. "The blooming tank is empty, and we're feeding on the scant reserve in ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... those gray old wives, The sights we see in our daily drives Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, Brown's bare hill with its lonely tree, (It wasn't then as we see it now, With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;) Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake Glide through his forests of fern and brake; Ipswich River; its old stone bridge; Far off Andover's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... swinging round leisurely in his revolving-chair. Ed Martin was always so leisurely in his movements that the marvel was how he got so much accomplished. Local dignitaries of the most admired kind, perhaps, wear their distinction as a kind of toga; but Ed was plump and short, with his scant, fair hair always rumpled, and a manner as ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... her door Is sitting in the sun; Her day of work is almost o'er, Her day of rest begun. Her face is black as darkest night, Her form is bent and thin, And o'er her bony visage tight Is stretched her wrinkled skin. Her dress is scant and mean; yet still About her ebon face There flows a soft and creamy frill Of costly Mechlin lace. What means the contrast strange and wide? Its like is seldom seen— A pauper's aged face beside The laces of a queen. Her mien is stately, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... ca'd them; but the serious were of opinion there was little service for sae mony, when the hale o' God's Word would gang in the neuk o' a plaid. Then he wad sit half the day, an' half the nicht forbye, which was scant decent—writin', nae less; an' first, they were feared he wad read his sermons; an' syne it proved he was writin' a book himsel', which was surely no' flttin' for ane o' his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... island in the Philippinas, and extends farthest north of all those islands. It is the most populous in nations and tribes, who exceed the others, both in bravery and in the light of reason, with well-known advantages. Its least altitude is scant thirteen degrees, and its greatest ten or nine and one-half. Its circuit, without taking into account certain bays, comprehends four hundred and twelve leguas. Those who make it three hundred are in error, for they do not consider ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... in much money to the writer? Yes, but I knew nothing of that worthy. I heard, it is true, from Mr. Petulengro, that when alive he committed robberies on the hill, on the side of which Mr. Petulengro had pitched his tents, and that his ghost still haunted the hill at midnight; but those were scant materials out of which to write the man's life. It is probable indeed, that Mr. Petulengro would be able to supply me with further materials if I should apply to him, but I was in a hurry, and could not afford ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... a breastwork on its eastern side, from which it was separated by a sallyport protected in front by a "blind," with a passage-way opening rearward as a provision for retreat. The men were given picks and shovels, and at once bent to their task with feverish energy. Scant four hours they had before them, when daylight would reveal them and their position to the enemy, for June's longest days and shortest nights were near, with daylight at four in the morning. They all labored for their lives, both officers and men, and toiled without ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... as was very likely to prove to be the case, he had fully made up his mind to pass the early summer months in Leipsic. In Leipsic he had an interest—the one great interest of his existence. The family had but scant sympathy with the force of the Leipsic attraction; their ambitions were set in quite another direction, and all their hopes and plans and wishes were bent to the accomplishment of that one end. They desired most ardently that he should take unto himself a wife, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... bushes arch with the weight of clusters of beautiful bright berries in September, every one must take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant attention from us, however, when its insignificant ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... with the wavering, lean image of hungry speculation, that cannot but fill the mind's eye because of certain famous Hamlets of our stage. Shakespeare himself foreshadowed a symbolic change, that shows a change in the whole temperament of the world, for though he called his Hamlet 'fat, and scant of breath,' he thrust between his fingers agile rapier ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... often passing into verrucose and chinky conditions, but scarcely ever areolate, sometimes scant and evanescent; apothecia usually minute or small, and commonly adnate, exciple weak and often becoming covered; hypothecium and hymenium passing from pale through shades of brown, the former becoming darker than the latter, this rarely ...
— Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 - The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V • Bruce Fink and Leafy J. Corrington

... But the same grace, for which the Canaanitish woman had needed to plead so hard, now seems to flow almost unasked. She had, as it were, wrung a drop out; now it gushes abundantly. She had not got her 'crumb' without much pleading; these get the bread almost without asking. It is this contrast of scant and full supplies which the evangelist would have us observe. And he points his meaning plainly enough by that expression, 'they glorified the God of Israel,' which seems to be Matthew's own, and not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... in the course of the next ten minutes they drew up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high stone wall ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... drying up like a leaky pail. There remained only the dregs of the thronging thousands who had chopped its streets to dust beneath their heels; and they were worked out, panned down to scant profit, and ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... of the painter's last decade. His art had matured; adversity had thrown him back upon his work; it was the solace of the hours that were not claimed by absurd official duties. Who shall say that the scant consideration he received from parasites and courtiers was an unmixed evil? The men who despised the painter because Philip favoured him may have helped to mould his character, may have enabled him to detach himself completely from his own official character when he could lay ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

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

... school session received scant attention from the prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in the prospects of a ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis

... this now almost-forgotten race—the Saracen—are still to be found on the northern seaboard of Africa, in the kingdom called Morocco, where they strive to eke out a scant existence from the arid plains of that ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... work which was forbidden him, and to get him out-of-doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her "my Kitty," and would not go to bed without her. How nice it all was! Then she recalled the thin, terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the efforts she had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as for all consumptive people, and the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... is generally described as cold in love. References to a knight's desire for a woman's love are very scant, and only once do we come across a hero who is quite in love. The young knight prefers more serious matters; his first desire is to win fame in battle, make rich booty.[21] He looks on love as superfluous, indeed he is convinced that it incapacitates him from what ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... made no reply, but busied himself hastening a scant breakfast in order that the worn mules be got to water before the worst heat of a dry day. Also the losses to the culinary outfit did make problems for ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... population living in dry, well-drained, well-ventilated houses, properly supplied with pure water and the means of disposal of refuse. And we have yet to become acquainted with a poor population spending their scant earnings entirely, or in a very large proportion, upon the necessities of life; for such is not the case when half the earnings of a family are thrown away to provide adulterated alcoholic drinks for one member of it. Until reforms such as ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

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

... 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 ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... brother's careless delight in the Surrey pine-woods with keen envy. It seemed to me that it was easy for him to enjoy himself with his month to squander; and in any case he was a healthy, cheerful boy who liked school well enough when he was there, though of course he liked holidays better. He had scant patience with my moods, and secretly I too thought they were wicked. We had been taught to believe that we alone were responsible for our sins, and it did not occur to me that the causes of my wickedness might lie beyond my control. The beauty of the scented pines and ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... Pennsylvania city. Altoona first became alarmed by the non-arrival and reported loss of the day express east on the Pennsylvania Railroad Friday afternoon. Soon the station was thronged with an anxious crowd, and the excitement became intense as the scant news came slowly in. Saturday the anxiety was relieved by a telegram from Ebensburg, which a blundering telegraph operator made "three hundred lost," instead of "three thousand." That was soon corrected by ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... while Caesar went out in the evening after dinner. There was scant animation in the streets, theatres didn't interest him, and he would soon return to the hotel salon to chat ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... of the Incas remained huddled together on the ledge without, but they made no effort to attack us. I had been watching perhaps three hours when they began to melt away into the passage. Soon but a scant dozen or so remained. These squatted along the wall just under the lighted urns, evidently in the capacity ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... and my mother presided over the kitchen at the big house and my Master's table, and among her other duties were to milk the cows and run the loom, weaving clothing for the other slaves. This left her scant time to look after me, so I early acquired the habit of looking out for myself. The other members of father's family were my sister Sally, about eight years old, and my brother Jordan, about five. My sister Sally was supposed to look after me when ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... print or 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 ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... of Browning seems to have little identity with the brief and splendid Sordello of Dante, the figure that fronts us in the superb sixth canto of the Purgatoria, "a guisa di leon quando si posa." The records of the real Sordello are scant, fragmentary and contradictory. No coherent outline of his personality remains, so that the character which Browning has made for him is a creation as absolute as if it had been wholly invented. The name indeed of Sordello, embalmed in Dante's verse, is still fresh to ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... had hired a little chateau in front of the Glandaz mountain—himself, his wife, their eldest girl, and Alicia. The adaptation of his famous manner to that strange scenery, its browns and French greys and filmy blues, so preoccupied him that he had scant time for becoming intimate with these hills and valleys. From the little gravelled terrace in front of the annex, out of which he had made a studio, there was an absorbing view over the pan-tiled old town of Die. It glistened below in the early or late sunlight, flat-roofed and ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... scant corners and ledges waiting for the eight o'clock bell. I squat next the thrifty Spanish lady, whereat she immediately begins telling me ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... beings created to draw another circumferential line, and you will see the action and the result of this great law of Co-operative Activities. When I first looked within the lids of that hollyhock, and was incited to read the rudimental lessons of the new leaves that man's art had added to its scant, original volume, I had no thought of finding so much matter printed on its pages. I have transcribed it here in the order of its paragraphs, hoping that some who read them may see in this life of flowers an interest ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... Alas! he showed Not like the one Mazeppa rode; Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, The wreck of what was once a steed, Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; Yet not without his knowing points. The sexton laughing in his sleeve, As if 't were all a make-believe, Led forth the ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... same expression. The eyes are generally large and ill shaped, the nose is long, the face is wan and meagre, and there is a peevish and almost saturnine expression in the wooden features which shows but slight affection for the Christ-child, and which could have afforded but scant comfort to any who sought to find there a gleam of tender pity. These pictures were generally half-length, against a background of gold leaf, which was at first laid on solidly, but which at a later period was adorned with tiny cherub figures. The folds of ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... in one building were the words, in the Spanish language, 'In this place the unfortunate Juan Juste, with many others of his company, was imprisoned.' It was fortunate that the inhabitants had fled, for they would have met with but scant mercy from the Spaniards, who were full of indignation at the thought of the horrible doom which had overtaken their companions. Sandoval now resumed his march to Tlascala, but before he could reach it, the convoy appeared transporting the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... had been very pleasant in spite of the cramped accommodation, for the little crew were a kindly simple people, whose countenances invited trust, and though the fare on board had been scant, yet it was wholesome and good, as the rest the ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... me one blessing, anyway, didn't it, Brown Brother?" the Hermit said softly, as he watched the buck eagerly drinking from a pail of water which he had thought to provide. Pal, strange to say, paid scant attention to the deer. Something in the heavy atmosphere seemed to weigh upon his spirits, for he crowded close upon the heels of his master. When the man seated himself the ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... 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 better temperature. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

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

... husband will be polite and delightful to you—as a doctor, he would treat you with scant civility, and would probably give you little ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... are not able to bear so great charges for the exhibytion of theyr chyldren. And Marchaunt menne can seldome finde in theyr heartes to hynder theyr merchaundise with so greate yearly expenses. And it thus falleth out that there is scant anye man founde within the realme skilfull and cunning in the lawes, except he be a gentleman borne, and come of noble stocke. Wherefore they more than any other kinde of men have a speciall regarde to their ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

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

... Applegate Farm and dug a new think-line in Ken's young forehead. For Rocky Head Granite was, 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 shoulder, bit ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... . . . then had come her refusal to marry him. What a fool he had been through it all! The wind and rain chastised his emotional intoxication, and he turned shivering to look for shelter. Dismounting, he crept beneath a low spruce and shivered beneath the scant covering of his saddle-blanket. To-morrow the sun would shine on a new world. He would arise and conquer his temptation. As he drifted to troubled sleep he knew, deep in his heart, that despite his heroics he would at that moment have given the little canvas sack of his brother's ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... periods are full of incongruities. Men have not yet adjusted their relations to morality and law with any niceness. They hold strongly by certain rude virtues, and on the other hand they quite fail to recognize even as shortcomings not a few traits that obtain scant mercy in older communities. Many of the desperadoes, the man-killers, and road-agents have good sides to their characters. Often they are people, who, in certain stages of civilization, do, or have done, good work, but who, when these stages have passed, find themselves ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... dimensions of his person would allow; but his hasty arrival, the effort of strength he had made, and his astonishment at the appearance of the most powerful personage in the Nile Province in the building entrusted to his care, so utterly took away his breath—of which he at all times was but "scant"—that he was unable even to stammer out a suitable greeting. Titianus gave him a little time, and then, after expressing his regret at the sad plight of the washing, now strewn upon the ground, and mentioning to the steward the name and position of his friend Pontius, he briefly explained ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

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

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

... original draft of his address, written before he came to Washington, Lincoln had dismissed with scant consideration the notion of a constitutional amendment: "I am not much impressed with the belief that the present Constitution can be improved. I am rather for the old ship, and the chart of the old pilots."[956] Sometime after his interview with Douglas, Lincoln struck ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... up in his arms as if he were a baby, instead of a 165-pound boy, carried him after her and laid the injured lad out in the scant strip of shade afforded by the aeroplane. Then, with bits of canvas ripped from the cover which had served to conceal him when he entered the aerial vehicle, the strange wanderer skillfully bathed and then bandaged ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... the virtues and attractions of that useful article of furniture—the sublime, immortal prig of all the ages, or you can take the head of any novel- reader under thirty for a football. You may have known many women, from Bernadettes of Massavielle to Borgias of scant neighborhoods, but you know you never knew one who would marry Old Dob, except as that emotional dishrag, Amelia, married him—as the Last Chance on the stretching high-road of uncertain years. No girl ever willingly marries door mats. She just wipes her feet on them and passes on into the drawing ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... child of want, Our doors are open still; And though our portions are but scant, We give them with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

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

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

... Rao was kept pivoting in his own tracks to face the danger, with scant room to meet a rush when it came. And always it came when least suggested by the other's manner. Then the pale one squealed—a succession of thin, cutting tones—and Gunpat Rao answered with a charge. The pale one ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... power. Graceful in tone and expression his outlook was the philosophical, possibly over-tolerant for the exigencies of the situation, although upon occasion his judgment proved a valuable counterweight to the hasty enthusiasm of Lloyd George. But Balfour, like Lansing, was sometimes treated with scant consideration by his chief and by no means exercised the influence which his experience and capacity ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... alone—that undoubtedly there was someone watching his prison. He examined the place as well as he could in the darkness, tried the door, ran his hands over the sides and up among the piles of linen. There was scant encouragement to be found, though Phil believed that if he had room to take a running start he ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... seen its population trebled in 1628. As it was, the situation became worse than ever. Lewis Kirke had been careful to seize the cattle pastured at Cap Tourmente and to destroy the crops. When winter came, there were eighty mouths to feed on a scant diet of peas and maize, imperfectly ground, with a reserve supply of twelve hundred eels. Towards spring anything was welcome, and the roots of Solomon's seal were esteemed a feast. Champlain even gave serious ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... 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 of the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

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

... 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

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

... 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 ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rifle fire. Their anxiety, however, was not about the Indians, whom they had found friendly, but about the problem of making the trip of seventy days to San Bernardino, across a desert country, with their wornout animals and their scant supplies. Had Mormon cruelty taken only the form of withholding provisions and forage from this company, its effect would have satisfied their most ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

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

... Guinemer doth his stirrup hold. Then might ye look upon cavaliers A-many round him who spake in tears. "Sir," they said, "what a woful day! Long were you ranked in the king's array, A noble vassal as none gainsay. For him who doomed you to journey hence Carlemagne's self shall be scant defence; Foul was the thought in Count Roland's mind, When you and he are so high affined. Sir," they said, "let us with you wend." "Nay," said Ganelon, "God forefend. Liefer alone to my death I go, Than such brave bachelors perish so. Sirs, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... pray you, Sir, take patience; I have hope, You less know how to value her desert, Than she to scant her duty. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... mind, will save a great deal of idle astonishment. It is in nothing more apparent than in the preparation here at Scheveningen for centuries of summer visitors, while at our Long Island hotel there was a losing bet on a scant generation of them. When it seemed likely that it might be a winning bet the sand was planked there in front of the hotel to the sea with spruce boards. It was very handsomely planked, but it was never afterwards touched, ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger

... noticed, on our Laird's court-day, An' mony a time my heart's been wae, Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, How they maun thole a factor's snash: He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an swear, He'll apprehend them, poind their gear: While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, An' hear it a', an' fear ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

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

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

... scant time for such refreshment, or for that preliminary stretching which is so grateful to bodies wearied by late hours and too-rapid living. Instead, nearly all the sojourners at Weet-sur-Mer had arisen aching from their beds, had hurried ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... village of Palanan and the missions of Dicalayon, and Dauilican or Divilican. Thence, until one reaches the cape of Engano, [123] one finds nothing more than some small anchoring-places, which offer but scant refuge to the vessels, as they are all exposed to the vendavals. On the northern coast as well, which begins at the said cape of Engano (so called because of the deceitfulness of its currents), one does not meet bay or port until he reaches the village of Aparri, some ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... 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

... chivalry at some length in his 'History of Fiction,' seems never to have suspected that these tales were written with any other intention than to amuse or that the events which they related were looked upon by their readers as other than facts. For Arthur he has scant respect, 'nor,' says he, 'as we advance, do we find him possessed of a single quality, except strength and courage, to excite respect or interest.' Surely the remark of one who must have been dead to all sense of imagination and romance—although purporting to be an authority ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... This scant sympathy Ethel found to be the usual tone among her acquaintances. St. Jude's got a new rector and a new idol, and the Stanhope affair was relegated to the limbo of things "it was proper ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

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

... would prevent or embarrass me in writing my book. I thought so myself at first, but had not long been at work before I found that the essential book needed no data other than those existing in my memory and supplied by the general theme; my material was not scant, but excessive. My knowledge of prison and my opinions and arguments based upon that knowledge were not subject to the Warden's confiscation, and they were quite enough to make a book of themselves, without need of dates, places, names and illustrations. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed with dusk, save where a ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

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

... are not to be found in the house of the good and godly man, for he, as his God, abhors them; but they are to be found in the house of evil doers, such as Mr. Badman's is. 'Are there,' saith the prophet, 'yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable!' (Micah 6:10). Are they there yet, notwithstanding God's forbidding, notwithstanding God's tokens of anger against those that do such things! O how loth is a wicked man to let go a sweet, a gainful sin, when he hath hold ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... not. Finally, after his modest dinner that evening, he bought a stall for the Frivolity and watched the piece. The girl he had come to see was there in the second row of the chorus, but she certainly did not look her best in the somewhat scant costume required by the part. She showed no signs whatever of any special ability—neither her dancing nor her singing seemed to entitle her to any consideration. She carried herself with a certain amount of self-consciousness, and her eyes ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... away up the slope towards the Gibbet Knoll, Whitefoot stealing along at his heels, walking almost in his tracks, but with his ears cocked to catch the slightest unexplained noise. As he arrived under the scant foliage of the few remaining gaunt trees, tall branchless trunks with a mere plume at the top of each, bent permanently away from the south-west by the sea-winds, he walked to the small stone platform on which ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... pause; Laura did not dare to raise her head; she even said a little prayer. Mrs. Gurley stood working at her chain, and tapping her foot—like a beast waiting for its prey, thought the child. And at last a hurried step was heard in the corridor, the door opened and a girl came in, high-coloured and scant of breath. Laura darted one glance at Mrs. Gurley's face, then looked away and studied the pattern of a quilt, trying not to hear what was said. Her throat swelled, grew hard and dry with pity for the culprit. But Lilith Gordon—a ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... fashion. Many without manners, though right well to look at; others wealthy, but without heart or soul; and others again ready to burst with rage, if any one but touched his hat to the beautiful Matilda. To all such, the innocent child had not a word to say; for she knew well enough, that scant blessing waits on marriages of such a make. There was but one young fellow who could be said to please her thoroughly, and he was neither rich nor singularly handsome. She had become acquainted with him at the weaver's, where he, like herself, went daily to work. Albert was industrious, well-behaved, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... in the weight of their skins? Yet it is so. Cattle raised in stalls and supplied regularly with good food have far better hides than those that range the fields and are forced to forage for the scant rations found there. Wild cattle, on the other hand, have much tougher hides than ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... bedsteads and other furniture went, until there was only one bedstead left, and that was rented through the day to a man who worked nights. Many days they had nothing to eat but bread or crackers—and often that was of a stale quality and a scant allowance. The eldest, a little boy, attended the Sunday-school of a Boston church; he has one of the truest, noblest, and most interesting faces I have ever seen. On missing him for a couple of Sundays, the superintendent of the school went in search of him, and for the first time knew of the condition ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... above him. The mountain was high here, and there was nothing resembling a path leading upward. To climb from one scant footing to another would ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... appropriation of money from the Western Lands, they would join with other dissenters in opposing it, on the ground that, in order to obtain their share of the money, they would have to admit their inferiority through the showing of the compulsory certificates. Moreover, even the scant favor secured through these was in danger from the continual favoritism of the legislature, with its treasury open at all times to its Congregational college, and with its enactments in ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... resumed his eastward march. At Lisieux, the next important stage, came the inevitable two cardinals with their inevitable proposals of mediation, which Edward put aside with scant civility. The army was soon once more on the move, and on August 7 struck the Seine at Elbeuf, a few miles higher up the river than Rouen. Here Edward was at last in touch with his enemy. During the English march through lower Normandy, Philip VI. had ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... gate in the lichen-covered stone wall, and follow him with her palm- shaded eyes down the lonely road; and it as frequently happened that he would glance back over his shoulder at the nut-brown maid, whose closely clinging, scant drapery gave her a sculpturesque grace to which her unconsciousness of it ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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

... constitution like a tempest of wind and thunder, and he had not forgotten it. He chuckled at the successful result of his attack, not caring to conceal his glee; but this meeting proved very unfortunate for poor Fan. After dismissing her old lover with scant courtesy, Miss Starbrow caught up with the girl, and they walked on in silence, looking at no shop-windows now. One glance at the dark angry face was enough to spoil Fan's pleasure for the day and to make her shrink within herself, wondering much as to what had caused so ...
— Fan • Henry Harford



Words linked to "Scant" :   deficient, provide, work, restrict, furnish, light



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