precious little
Almost nothing available
Precious little means almost none—an emphatic way of saying very little.
The phrase carries a note of complaint or frustration about scarcity: There's precious little evidence to support that claim.
We had precious little time to prepare.
Precious few works the same way for countable things: Precious few people showed up.
- bare minimumSmallest acceptable quantity
- disappointingFailing to satisfy expectations
- meagerDeficient in quantity
- rareSeldom found or seen
- negligibleToo small to consider
treasured · deficient · bittersweet · poignant · paltry · wistful · frustrating · cold comfort · prized · inadequate · drop in the bucket · scant · invaluable · cherished · sparse · thin on the ground · few and far between · short supply
precious, little, preciousness, littler, littlest, appreciate, appreciation, depreciate, depreciation