scarce

Meaning

Adj

1. Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.
2. Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of.

Adv

Scarcely, only just.

Synonyms

rare

scanty

few

🤏

sparse

scant

poor

thin

meager

insufficient

uncommon

limited

in short supply

seldom

little

infrequent

barely

just

unusual

hardly

precious

skimpy

scarcely

rarely

meagre

short

costly

small

not often

slight

lacking

lean

gaunt

deficient

slender

spare

subtle

tight

trifling

unfit

unsuitable

vacancy

vanish

venial

wanting

at a premium

hard up

be rare

very rare

be uncommon

few remaining

Translations

rare

escaso

schaars

escasso

karig

scarso

raro

raro

knapp

schriel

schraal

insuficiente

insuffisant

selten

karg

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈskɛəs/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: scarce

Cognate with Middle Dutch: schaers

In summary

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”).