Adjective: scarce
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | scarcer |
| Superlative | scarcest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
-
By the end of the 20th century elephants had become scarce even in Africa.
-
You tell him silver is scarcer now in England, and therefore risen in value one fifth. [1691, [John Locke], Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money. […], London: […] Awnsham and John Churchill, […], published 1692, →OCLC:]
-
My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price. [1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:]
-
The project failed due to the scarce resources in the national market.
-
a region scarce of prey [1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:]
Adjectives inflected like scarce
scarce,
smoove,
sombre,
wholsome,
sheene,
bolshie,
baroque,
concrete,
seveare,
comf'table,
shrewde,
'umble,
grislie,
unsubtle,
ungentle,
indiscrete,
couthie,
chavvie,
lissome,
cutesie, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
1. 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”).
2. 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”).
Verbs referencing "scarce"
Galician Adjectives
escaso, Spanish Adjectives
escaso.