i Register
In some senses, measly is marked as figuratively, informal. Watch for register when choosing this word.
adj
Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms).
Then take five or six apples, pick out the cores and fill up the holes thus made with flour of brimstone; stop up the holes and cast in the apples to the measly hog.
Of a person: infected with measles.
A measly boy, he looked like a tramp, probably one of the street boys from the village, just walked up here and made himself at home, and when I told him to leave, he wouldn't.
Small (especially contemptibly small) in amount.
For one whole day's work all I was given was twenty measly pounds.
The visiting tourists eagerly forked over a measly two dollars per group to their guides as payment for their services. This amount was measly sum to the givers, but a princely sum to the takers.