a. [f. L. exigu-us scanty in measure or number (f. exigĕre to weigh strictly: see EXACT v.) + -OUS.] Scanty in measure or number; extremely small, diminutive, minute.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 141. Of great vertue, yet of an exiguous quantity.
1654. trans. Scudery’s Curia Politiæ, 39. If they have any being, it is so exiguous, that it is scarce visible.
a. 1708. J. Philips, Fall of Chloe’s Jordan, 100. Protected mice, The race exiguous … Their mansions quit.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., V. v. The soldier’s pay is in the highest degree exiguous; not above three half-pence a day.
1882. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 May, 3/1. The judgment of the House of Lords on the exiguous point raised by the Bordesley appeal.
Hence Exiguousness = EXIGUITY.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Exiguousness, littleness, smallness.
1775. in Ash.
1888. Sat. Rev., 22 Sept., 352/1. No. 1, though its apparent exiguousness might suggest a different conclusion, is a number ‘of the highest importance.’
