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scarce

(skârs)

adj. scarc·er, scarc·est

1. Insufficient to meet a demand or requirement; short in supply: Fresh vegetables were scarce during the drought.

2. Hard to find; absent or rare: Steel pennies are scarce now except in coin shops.

adv.

Barely or hardly; scarcely.

Idiom:

make (oneself) scarce Informal

1. To stay away; be absent or elusive.

2. To depart, especially quickly or furtively; abscond.

[Middle English scars, from Old French scars, from Vulgar Latin *excarpsus, narrow, cramped, from past participle of *excarpere, to pluck out, alteration of Latin excerpere, to pick out; see EXCERPT.]

scarceness n.

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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