scant
SKANTadjMeaning barely enough; very little
Memory hook S-CAN’T: can’t call that enough. Zoe shakes the cereal box and gets five flakes and some dust. You can’t call that breakfast: the cereal is scant.
The recipe calls for a scant teaspoon of salt.
In context With scant evidence and no witnesses, the detective had little choice but to close the file and wait for new clues.
Similar little, limited, meager, insufficient
Opposite ample, abundant, plentiful
From Old Norse skamt, “short.”