Here is an interesting word from The Valley of Fear, in The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes uses this word when he describes Professor Moriarty to Scotland Yard Detective MacDonald. Moriarty is the genius behind London’s underworld, and Holmes knows this, but he cannot prove it in court, so he must wait for the professor to make a mistake.
Exigous – scanty, meager, small
Usage: “Of course I have other reasons for thinking [Moriarty’s wealth was obtained illegally] – dozens of exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking.”
Here is another use of the word in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:
She had a rudimentary knowledge of the law – it was a subject she had never had occasion to explore – and her faith in the police was generally exiguous.
STIEG LARSSON, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
