"slim pickings" meaning in English

See slim pickings in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} slim pickings pl (plural only)
  1. (colloquial) A small amount, especially of money; paucity. Tags: colloquial, plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-slim_pickings-en-noun-cq0axqoi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum

Download JSON data for slim pickings meaning in English (1.8kB)

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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
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      "expansion": "slim pickings pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
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        {
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          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1876, The Gentleman's Magazine, July to December issue, pg. 208",
          "text": "... they were among the citizens of the Great Republic who got shut into Paris during the siege, and had reason to complain of \"the slim pickings\" even their dollars commanded during that tragic episode of our neighbours' history.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920, Harry Alverson Franck, Roaming Through the West Indies, The Century Co., page 153",
          "text": "Only at one season during the year does the average Haitian get more than these slim pickings; that is in mango-time, and then the roads and trails are carpeted with the yellow pits.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Mike Wise, The Washington Post, \"Redskins Looked Below the Radar,\" February 10, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/09/AR2008020903082_pf.html",
          "text": "But in a year of slim pickings in the super-coach business -- Cowher and Carroll preferred to wait another day -- there was not much left to choose from."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A small amount, especially of money; paucity."
      ],
      "id": "en-slim_pickings-en-noun-cq0axqoi",
      "links": [
        [
          "money",
          "money"
        ],
        [
          "paucity",
          "paucity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) A small amount, especially of money; paucity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "slim pickings"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
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      "expansion": "slim pickings pl (plural only)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        {
          "ref": "1876, The Gentleman's Magazine, July to December issue, pg. 208",
          "text": "... they were among the citizens of the Great Republic who got shut into Paris during the siege, and had reason to complain of \"the slim pickings\" even their dollars commanded during that tragic episode of our neighbours' history.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920, Harry Alverson Franck, Roaming Through the West Indies, The Century Co., page 153",
          "text": "Only at one season during the year does the average Haitian get more than these slim pickings; that is in mango-time, and then the roads and trails are carpeted with the yellow pits.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Mike Wise, The Washington Post, \"Redskins Looked Below the Radar,\" February 10, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/09/AR2008020903082_pf.html",
          "text": "But in a year of slim pickings in the super-coach business -- Cowher and Carroll preferred to wait another day -- there was not much left to choose from."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A small amount, especially of money; paucity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "money",
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        "(colloquial) A small amount, especially of money; paucity."
      ],
      "tags": [
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    }
  ],
  "word": "slim pickings"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.