scarce

CEFRB2

/ˈskɛəs/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Not common or available in sufficient amount.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of.

Examples

  • Food is still scarce in the region.

  • Telephone booths are as scarce as hen's teeth around here.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
4
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
3

Also pronounced

  • /skeːs/
  • /skiəs/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Scarcely, only just.

  2. Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.

More examples

In context

  • Water is scarce in this area.

  • By the end of the 20th century elephants had become scarce even in Africa.

  • The project failed due to the scarce resources in the national market.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

During the drought, clean water became very blank, so people had to travel miles for a drink.

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

Nearby

Origin

adjective

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 Midd...