exiguous
/ɪɡˈzɪ.ɡju.əs/
"exiguous" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“exiguous” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Scanty; meager.
Corpus desk
Index EN-exiguous · exiguous · English
exiguous · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | exiguous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪɡˈzɪ.ɡju.əs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “exiguous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
exiguous is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ɪɡˈzɪ.ɡju.əs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Scanty; meager.".
exiguous has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin exiguus (“strict, exact”), from exigere (“to measure against a standard”). The correct English form is exiguous, spelled E-X-I-G-U-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Scanty; meager.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how exiguous appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The herdboy in the broom, already musical in the days of Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps pains) the lark with this exiguous pipe.
The path on which I then planted my feet was quite unprecedentedly narrow. I had never had to walk along a thoroughfare so exiguous.
Etymology
From Latin exiguus (“strict, exact”), from exigere (“to measure against a standard”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.