measly vs sparse

measly

adj
  • Small (especially contemptibly small) in amount. 

  • Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms). 

  • Of a person: infected with measles. 

sparse

adj
  • Not dense; meager; scanty 

  • Having few nonzero elements 

  • Having widely spaced intervals. 

How often have the words measly and sparse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )