dearth

CEFRB2

/dɜːθ/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A lack or shortage of something.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    Dearness; the quality of being rare or costly.

Examples

  • For a writer there is no dearth of detractors.

  • Shortly thereafter, the dearth returned to the house.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Scarcity; a lack or short supply.

  2. A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.

verb

Extra meaning

  1. To cause or produce a scarcity in something.

More examples

In context

  • And faine would hee, if he could tell how, haue plentie in his own fields, and scarcity in other mens; superfluitie at home, and dearth abroade, that hee might sell his corne at the dearer rate

  • The dearth of A.I. chips has been exacerbated because Nvidia, a longtime provider of the chips, has a virtual lock on the market.

  • A dearth of signalmen and the high cost of labour is hastening an elimination process that already was well under way before the second world war.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

There is a blank of clean water in the drought-stricken region.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

First attested at least as early as the late 1300s, and appearing in Tyndale’s Pentateuch (1530) as well as the Coverdale Bible (1535). From Middle English derth, derthe, derþe, probably from Old English *dīerþ, *dīerþu, from Proto-West Germanic *diuriþu, from Proto-Germanic *diuriþō (“costliness, preciousness, honour”); corresponding to dear + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with Old Saxon diuriða (“glory, honour; preciousness”), West Frisian djoerte (“love, dearness, value, worth”), Dutch duurte (“dearness; scarcity, dearth”), Icelandic dýrð (“honour, glory”).