Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; scanty; meager.
a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment
Sparing; parsimonious; chary.
(cooking, of a measurement) Slightly diminished; just short of the amount described.
a scant cup of sugar
verb
(transitive) To limit in amount or share; to stint.
to scant someone in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries
(intransitive) To fail, or become less; to scantle.
The wind scants.
determiner
Very little, very few.
After his previous escapades, Mary had scant reason to believe John.
(as pronoun) The failure of this project has scant to do with me.
noun
A small piece or quantity.
(uncommon) Scarcity; lack.
Even if labour were diverted to a great extent from our grand staple, the cotton manufacture, we are not prepared to admit that the country would be worse off. The worst that could happen in such a case would be, that for a few years, during the inordinate progress of railways, our population would run short of shirts and shifts. If the woollen manufacture be the theme, there would be a scant of coats and petticoats; or if the earthenware manufacture, there must be fewer teapots and pipkins.
(masonry) A block of stone sawn on two sides down to the bed level.
(masonry) A sheet of stone.
(wood) A slightly thinner measurement of a standard wood size.
adverb
(uncommon or dated) With difficulty; scarcely; hardly.