scarce

Pronunciation: /ˈskɛɚs/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B1 — Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. adjective deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand
  2. adverb only a very short time before; ; ; ; ; - W.B.Yeats

Etymology

From Middle English scars, scarse, from Old Northern French scars, escars ("sparing, niggard, parsimonious, miserly, poor"; > French échars, Medieval Latin scarsus (“diminished, reduced”)), of uncertain origin. One theory is that it derives originally from a Late Latin *scarpsus, *excarpsus, a participle form of *excarpere (“take out”), from Latin ex- + carpere; yet the sense evolution is difficult to trace. Compare Middle Dutch schaers (“scarce”), Middle Dutch schaers (“a pair of shears, plowshare”), scheeren (“to shear”). The standard pronunciation having the /ɛə(ɹ)/ vowel instead of expected /ɑː(ɹ)/ is due to a tendency for Old and Middle French preconsonantal /ar/ to be borrowed as Middle English /aːr/ that only survives in this word and dace in the modern standard, but is more frequent in Early Modern English and traditional dialects; compare Scots gairden (“garden”), lairge (“large”).

In classic literature

Semantic network

Similar
rare, tight
Opposite (antonyms)
abundant

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