poor vs scant

poor

adj
  • Inadequate, insufficient. 

  • Deficient in a specified way. 

  • Of low quality. 

  • Free from self-assertion; not proud or arrogant; meek. 

  • Used to express pity. 

  • With no or few possessions or money, particularly in relation to contemporaries who do have them. 

verb
  • Synonym of impoverish, to make poor. 

noun
  • A poor person. 

  • The poor people of a society or the world collectively, the poor class of a society. 

scant

adj
  • Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; scanty; meager. 

  • Sparing; parsimonious; chary. 

verb
  • To fail, or become less; to scantle. 

  • To limit in amount or share; to stint. 

noun
  • A sheet of stone. 

  • Scarcity; lack. 

  • A small piece or quantity. 

  • A slightly thinner measurement of a standard wood size. 

  • A block of stone sawn on two sides down to the bed level. 

det
  • Very little, very few. 

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