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sparse
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  • There were tufts of sparse grass, a few bushes and rocks, and nearby he could see an area of thicker vegetation: broad, low trees outlined against the sky.†   (source)
  • "Get up here, Man," Stacey ordered, but Little Man only gazed at the ragged red bank sparsely covered with scraggly brown briars and kept on walking.†   (source)
  • In its window is a sparse display of wrenches and hinges.†   (source)
  • The fish were plentiful, the campers sparse.†   (source)
  • The sun is made of a sparse but expansive gaseous outer layer and a dense and hot inner core.†   (source)
  • By some extraordinary conspiracy of fate, at the very instant Nina made this pronouncement, the accordion player concluded an old favorite and the sparsely populated room broke into applause.†   (source)
  • Tired of Papaw's constant presence and Mamaw's "interference," Mom and Bob decided to move to Preble County, a sparsely populated part of Ohio farm country approximately thirty-five miles from Middletown.†   (source)
  • I've searched our archive thoroughly, but unfortunately the information is sparse.†   (source)
  • He was approaching the sparse, skeletal trees in front of the denser woods when he was startled by a blur of movement at his feet, followed by a hurried set of clacking sounds.†   (source)
  • The inside was sparsely decorated.†   (source)
  • I had assumed that the Pacific, but for passing schools of fish, was a sparsely inhabited waste of water.†   (source)
  • The second one stands, holds out his bottle, and chooses the sparse traffic of the right-hand lane.†   (source)
  • Now, as they sped away from the embassy, serpentining through sparse traffic on Champs-Elysées, Langdon felt his options deteriorating.†   (source)
  • They wore gold rings in their leather ears and in the wind their sparse and ratty hair twisted about on their skulls.†   (source)
  • Something about that voice made the sparse hairs on the back of Frank's neck stand up.†   (source)
  • "He has the sweetest of smiles," and with one insubstantial hand she stroked the child's sparse blond hair.†   (source)
  • His flat, normally sparsely furnished and immaculate, was strung with training schedules and dietary sheets.†   (source)
  • He could see just the roof of Jen's house beyond the sparse line of trees.†   (source)
  • Several weeks earlier, Edwin, the Tlingit elder from Drake, had built a sparse one-room wood shelter for Cole on the island.†   (source)
  • Under all this a sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy knot on top of her head.†   (source)
  • Wu had to admit that the bungalow Hammond had built for himself was elegant, with sparse, almost Japanese lines.†   (source)
  • The back exits need to be as sparsely guarded as possible.†   (source)
  • She was standing well down the leftfield foul line, past third base, looking into the sparse stands, the almost-empty bleacher seats—trying to see if there was anyone she knew there, I guess.†   (source)
  • Or we went to visit with other Punjabi families in sparsely furnished, crowded apartments in the same building and watched their videos.†   (source)
  • Flowers, weeds, junk, pet houses, tree houses, vegetable gardens, rubber tires, grass ranging from desert-sparse to shaggy to trim as a marine's haircut — the backyards were as different, as individual as faces.†   (source)
  • She would soothe the household, which seemed to her, from the sickly dimness of the bedroom, like a troubled and sparsely populated continent from whose forested vastness competing elements made claims and counterclaims upon her restless attention.†   (source)
  • The short trees and sparse undergrowth which surrounded the men's village began to give way to giant trees and climbers which perhaps had stood from the beginning of things, untouched by the axe and the bush-fire.†   (source)
  • Will said with a laugh as the three friends headed tothe barely paved parking lot of the Dayton Street Projects, which was filled with weeds, sparse patches of grass, broken glass, and all kinds of debris.†   (source)
  • Wind rustles through the tall sparse trees that line the road.†   (source)
  • Singh is a professor?" my father asked, though he knew this already, knew more than he was comfortable with about this beautiful woman and her sparsely furnished home.†   (source)
  • The little but with its sparsely thatched roof sagged at one corner.†   (source)
  • His gray hair looks more sparse than the last time Gogol remembers, his potbelly more pronounced.†   (source)
  • The trees were sparser up here, and the wind blew more vigorously, sharp gusts that tugged at her clothing and pushed her hair into her eyes.†   (source)
  • It's freezing down here, but it's also clean and sparse and white.†   (source)
  • As a wave of musty air blew up to meet them, the android turned on her floodlight, dispersing the shadows from the sparse halogens.†   (source)
  • The moon shone through the window, giving the room sparse light and making me feel a little nervous.†   (source)
  • We kept on like this for hours, me reading and taking notes, Deborah staring at Elsie's picture in long silences broken only by her sparse commentary: "My sister look scared."†   (source)
  • It had a note from him pinned to part of its sparse instrument panel.†   (source)
  • There was always the sense that it was temporary; she didn't keep many clothes there and lived mostly out of a suitcase on a luggage rack at the foot of her bed; and for reasons inexplicable I liked the empty, restful anonymity of the flat, which was cheerfully but sparsely decorated with abstract-patterned rugs and modern furnishings from an affordable design store.†   (source)
  • The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road.†   (source)
  • It was sparse in the furniture department, but it was relatively new, and it had both a gas fireplace and small balcony that offered a view of the campus.†   (source)
  • Mother didn't want to plead for any more credit at the grocery store, so the cupboards held a sparse supply of staples.†   (source)
  • Talk was sparse, and depression hung over the house.†   (source)
  • "This is sparse country," she said.†   (source)
  • Back from it sprouted palm trees, sparsely at first, and then more densely as the verdant forest took over and shrouded the island in a canopy of green that continued up the hills and into the mountains.†   (source)
  • I stumbled upon it while wandering, lost, along the banks of the Hoolie River in the "sparsely populated section of town where the Old City decays into Jacktown amid a jumble of tall warehouses which prevent even a glimpse of the ruined towers of the cathedral until one turns a corner onto a narrow cul-de-sac and there is the shell of the cathedral; its chapter house has half fallen away into the river, its facade is pocked with remnants of the mournful, apocalyptic statuary of the…†   (source)
  • The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me — to justify a beauty that didn't depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun.†   (source)
  • Trees, the sniper's nearest and dearest friends, were damn sparse.†   (source)
  • We had just heard the story recounted so many times over the years that it was easy to take the details and fold them into our own sparse memories, embellishing here or there to fill in the blanks.†   (source)
  • They and Myrta settled into a life marked by increasingly sparse visits from Dr. Holmes, but when he did appear, he brought warmth and gifts and entombed little Lucy in his arms.†   (source)
  • Willem's sparsely furnished room was on the fourth floor of a private home.†   (source)
  • The Dugout was sparsely furnished--booth benches with backs on them along the walls, and support pilings scattered throughout the room that cut into the dancing space.†   (source)
  • I expected the camp to be sparsely populated.†   (source)
  • There is a constant undulation of the ground that makes the shattered glass flash and twinkle; this is caused by vast, sparse migrations of rats.†   (source)
  • There is an expressway beyond the backyard now, well below us, and at night as we settle into our brass bed the sparse traffic washes past, a remote and steady murmur around our sleep, as of dead souls babbling at the edge of a dream.†   (source)
  • It was a large room, only sparsely furnished: a long table with eight chairs, a cupboard, and a heavy sideboard.†   (source)
  • After seeing my reflection I decided to use some of my sparse water supply to have a wash, and at the same time I would light a fire in one of the few intact kitchen stoves to cook the remains of my oatmeal.†   (source)
  • Here, the tables and benches were more widely spaced and sparsely populated.†   (source)
  • Our sparse neighborhood was being canvassed.†   (source)
  • I figured Gurney to be sparse with his praise.†   (source)
  • He was an old man in suspenders, one useless eye wandering loose in its socket, poorly shaven wattles of skin at his throat—raw, chafed, and pinkish folds with sparse silver bristles poking out of them.†   (source)
  • As they hurried home, Saeed and Nadia looked at the night sky, at the forcefulness of the stars and the moon's pockmarked brightness in the absence of electric lighting and in the reduced pollution from fuel-starved and hence sparse traffic, and wondered where the door to which they had purchased access might take them, someplace in the mountains or on the plains or by the seaside, and they saw an emaciated man lying on the street who had recently expired, either from hunger or…†   (source)
  • If he prophesied that the cotton in today's field was going to be sparse and stick to the bolls like glue, every listener would grunt a hearty agreement.†   (source)
  • He stole a glance at the lawyer: an angular face with sparse, bristly white hair and thick glasses perched on an impressive nose.†   (source)
  • I push him down the hallway and through one of the doors to a sparsely furnished room near the dormitory.†   (source)
  • He hated it, as he hated the Texas plains, the Nevada desert; spaces horizontal and sparsely inhabited had always induced in him a depression accompanied by agoraphobic sensations.†   (source)
  • We walked through bare halls, and peered into sparsely furnished rooms, as unwashed and unsupervised children ran amok.†   (source)
  • The sun struck, on steel, on bronze, on stone, on glass, on the gray water far beneath them, on the turret tops and the flashing windshields of crawling cars, on the incredible highways, stretching and snarling and turning for mile upon mile upon mile, on the houses, square and high, low and gabled, and on their howling antennae, on the sparse, weak trees, and on those towers, in the distance, of the city of New York.†   (source)
  • The place was sparsely but comfortably furnished.†   (source)
  • The monkey's skin was rashy and covered with red blotches, visible through his sparse hair.†   (source)
  • It pained David that his memories of Paul at this age were so sparse, so fleeting.†   (source)
  • The flowers were sparser.†   (source)
  • She scrutinized the sparse growth, the leafless bushes about the spot, looking for signs of a struggle, and the question in her heart was, "My God, was he alive or dead?"†   (source)
  • The grass was sparse, and every hoof sent up its little spurt of dust.†   (source)
  • The climate is more pleasant here than in the lowlands, and the mud-walled huts are sparse.†   (source)
  • I turn and vomit into a sparse bush.†   (source)
  • It was clean and sparsely furnished, and computer files, which he went over in Bolling's presence, yielded no clues.†   (source)
  • Feather, a short squat man with sparse but curly hair, looked up at Guitar, then at Milkman, and frowned.†   (source)
  • Like everything else here, it's pink and gold and sparsely furnished.†   (source)
  • Further up there was witchgrass, sparse, then green and rank… then the first sweet smell of real grass, mixed with timothy and shaded by the first of the dwarfed firs.†   (source)
  • The sparsely furnished cell contains a wooden crate upon which sits a hot plate with a kettle, and a portable tape recorder.†   (source)
  • Athelas they named it, and it grows now sparsely and only near places where they dwelt or camped of old; and it is not known in the North, except to some of those who wander in the Wild.†   (source)
  • They had stopped near a spring, in a clearing that was sparsely wooded with thin, scraggly trees, at the cleft of the canyon.†   (source)
  • The smears led to car tracks that were clearly delineated in the sparsely traveled soil.†   (source)
  • He chewed each mouthful of his sparse nourishment fifty times.†   (source)
  • With them this time was the twenty-four-year-old fighter-pilot captain with the sparse golden mustache who had been shot into the Adriatic Sea in midwinter and not even caught cold.†   (source)
  • She lingered for a moment in the piteously small crowd that had gathered and then stepped into the sparsely decorated palanquin.†   (source)
  • Tonight's meeting is a sparsely attended affair.†   (source)
  • His sparse gray hair lay uncombed on his head.†   (source)
  • Portia had spent hours sifting through the sparse history of their ancestry, with little to show for her efforts.†   (source)
  • The trees were sparse here, but to the east the forest would slow them.†   (source)
  • The sparse light that streamed through the small windows was filled with dust which danced in seemingly random movements.†   (source)
  • Those celebrations were so sparse, the future so uncertain, that the ground seemed to be shifting beneath us.†   (source)
  • The sparser-than-usual scatter of jewelry and memorial pins might tell me, if I stared closely enough to read names.†   (source)
  • "Sometimes simplicity backed by authority is best in deception," observed Krupkin as the Citroën was maneuvered between the sparse, erratic traffic across the wide avenue to the entrance of the white-stone apartment complex.†   (source)
  • The furnishings were sparse; there were no carpets.†   (source)
  • The sparse furniture looked as if it had been picked up in a yard sale.†   (source)
  • At his sparsely attended funeral, Felicia howls like a lonely she-wolf.†   (source)
  • He clutched at the sparse grass of the orchard, then rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees, trying not to be sick.†   (source)
  • It was a forty-minute walk to Crofter's Hill—a tall, sparsely covered knoll that rose above the Sanctuary plains.†   (source)
  • He knows that his brother's foray into civil rights will fail if the rally at the Lincoln Memorial turns hostile or is sparsely attended.†   (source)
  • The light from his desk lamp makes the black bristles of his hair look even more sparse, like a landscape of trees in winter.†   (source)
  • The limbs are so sparse and thin here that all anyone would have to do is look up to see me.†   (source)
  • He was a composer who wrote old-fashioned scores for motion pictures, and modern symphonies for sparse audiences.†   (source)
  • Green became sparser as they climbed.†   (source)
  • We were streaking down back roads and sparsely traveled highways that cut through a wilder, more primitive South Carolina.†   (source)
  • The bathroom was a sparse empty stone room with open drains in the floor and a tap to one side.†   (source)
  • It being just after ten, the immense mall parking lot is practically deserted, save the hulking, older-model and econobox cars of the store employees, which sparsely line the far periphery in a gesture to the large weekend crowds that have long gone elsewhere.†   (source)
  • But the valley had only sparse patches of dirt sprinkled in among broken boulders and walls of solid stone.†   (source)
  • Its population was sparse until augmented through the relocation subplan of the Great New York Urban Renewal Program, A.D. twenty-twenty-five through twenty-thirty.†   (source)
  • I could see the grey hairs in his sparse beard.†   (source)
  • Its furnishings were rustic and sparse.†   (source)
  • But the choices were pretty sparse on the ground, period.†   (source)
  • From early November until April the wolves and caribou travel together through the taiga, the sparse borderline forests of stunted spruce and jackpine lying below the timberline.†   (source)
  • The place was sparsely furnished with bare walls and empty coffee and side tables.†   (source)
  • The burro chewed the dry tufts of grass as close to the gray shale as it could and strained against the reins to reach another sparse clump of grass.†   (source)
  • Not like the French city of Detroit, people all packed in together, nor like the sparse settlements of the Wobbish country, with each farm carved out like a gouge in the greenwood forest.†   (source)
  • That course was a square of improved road that went through sparsely populated farmland, with miles of golden pastures.†   (source)
  • Randy believed nothing except what he himself heard or saw, or those sparse hard grains of fact sifted from the air waves by Sam Hazzard.†   (source)
  • Sparsely furnished, the room contained a plain pinewood table, a steel filing cabinet, four straight-backed chairs, a cot upon which Miss sometimes rested, seeking surcease from the migraine headaches that assailed him from time to time.†   (source)
  • Now I look back, or listen back, in the same desire to imagine, and it seems possible that the sound of that sparse music, so faint and unearthly to my childhood ears, was the sound he'd had to speak to him in all that country silence among so many elders where he was the only child.†   (source)
  • Why should anyone rip up the grass, even if it was sparse grass, and make the earth grow something else?†   (source)
  • Her hair was so sparse her head looked shaved.†   (source)
  • One touched him on the shoulder--an old, old man with sparse white stubble and tiny, close-set eyes--and called him by his name.†   (source)
  • It was a desolate spot that de Jong had chosen for his picnic: a strip of canal with a couple of shell-torn piliboxes, some parched, sandy fields, and on the east-. em side a sparse pinewood lying about two hundred yards from the gravel road which bordered the canal.†   (source)
  • These cosmogonies were natural in the ancient world-a world settled so sparsely that nature was not yet eclipsed by man.†   (source)
  • Here races were still held, sparsely attended by the public for lack of road transport.†   (source)
  • Although last-minute maneuvers failed to admit Colorado over the President's veto (sparsely populated Colorado had rejected statehood in a referendum), an unexpected tragedy brought false tears and fresh hopes for a new vote, in Kansas.†   (source)
  • His eyes moved behind the thin, sparse lids.†   (source)
  • a sparse matrix
  • The area is sparsely populated.
  • These two are very young: one mustache is still sparse, one face is still blotchy.†   (source)
  • To me, though, the sparseness of the room made the whole thing depressing.†   (source)
  • The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping (do boars gallop?†   (source)
  • With nothing for miles and miles but sparse, dead land.†   (source)
  • The traffic was sparse, and Langdon felt fading hope as he scanned for taxis.†   (source)
  • "Which was?" asks Reverend Verringer, lifting his sparse eyebrows.†   (source)
  • After picketing the horses where they could nibble the sparse grass, Murtagh started a small fire.†   (source)
  • The water came down between our bodies and wet the sparse hair along his chest and stomach.†   (source)
  • He was a rangy man with sparse hair and a gap between his two front teeth.†   (source)
  • We climbed a few steps and entered a large, sparsely decorated house.†   (source)
  • He retreated into the brush until he came out on the other side into a sparse pine wood.†   (source)
  • They sit on the floor in a sparsely furnished room.†   (source)
  • His funeral, on a warm, rainy August day, was only sparsely attended.†   (source)
  • Hawat lowered his head, looked upward through his sparse lashes.†   (source)
  • On top of the dresser, only her sparse jewelry collection remained, and the wind-up alarm clock.†   (source)
  • You've seen them in sparse, semi-arid scrublands.†   (source)
  • The tree was a tall cedar with only sparse scrub branches down low.†   (source)
  • Kit looked around at the much mended clothing and the sparse furnishings of the little room.†   (source)
  • Sparse clumps of plant growth were scattered around it.†   (source)
  • The underbrush was sparse compared to the previous day's travel and they made good time.†   (source)
  • Small, deep windows let in only sparse rays of light.†   (source)
  • Wisps of sandy hair protruded from it, matched by a sparse beard and thick brows.†   (source)
  • After the sparse dinner, Eragon asked bluntly, "How did they find us?"†   (source)
  • Sparsely hung lanterns cast a moody light.†   (source)
  • Slowly, however, the silhouette straightened and began to thread its way up through the sparse wood.†   (source)
  • Candy's place was located just a few minutes away, toward the end of a sparsely inhabited street.†   (source)
  • I leaned against the doorjamb, taking another look at its sparse furnishings.†   (source)
  • Shaggy pelts covered their bodies, thick below the waist, sparser above.†   (source)
  • The Iron Islands were too sparse and rocky for breeding good horses.†   (source)
  • Traffic was sparse out there in the heart of nowhere.†   (source)
  • Sparse tufts of hair ringed his shiny bald head.†   (source)
  • But she wasn't seeing the sparse, dead land surrounding us.†   (source)
  • His eyes were huge and bulging, and the hair on his head was sparse.†   (source)
  • On either side of him, the landscape was flat and sparse and about as exciting as pancake batter.†   (source)
  • Through the sparse leaves I spy the East Wing's progress.†   (source)
  • The only light came from sparsely placed red lanterns, pale in the shadows.†   (source)
  • Newman nodded at one of the MPs at the back of the sparsely furnished room.†   (source)
  • Sparse black bristles grew over the whole of his hide.†   (source)
  • It was furnished sparsely, just a few tables scattered about.†   (source)
  • Everything confirmed the sparse details that we already had.†   (source)
  • The undergrowth was sparse beneath them, the forest floor carpeted in dark green needles.†   (source)
  • He scowled at her, and his sparse eyebrows met, forming a single straight line.†   (source)
  • Tonight, a lone piano serenaded a sparse, more mature crowd.†   (source)
  • He fingered the sparse bristles along his jaw.†   (source)
  • It's kind of small and sparse and it wasn't likely to sell, but I thought it might be nice in here.†   (source)
  • While the details are sparse, it could only have been one of the most dreadful moments of his life.†   (source)
  • They rode in silence through sparse woodland where the trees leaned drunkenly away from the sea.†   (source)
  • The rooms were sparsely decorated, almost as if no one lived there.†   (source)
  • The kitchen was small (for giants) and sparsely stocked.†   (source)
  • She wanted to have a pleasant, sparsely furnished apartment that was easy to take care of.†   (source)
  • I passed a sparse plantation of coffee trees, then straggly guava bushes.†   (source)
  • When the dust mushrooms toward them, they back off, spreading out, looking sparse and dispersed.†   (source)
  • But we haven't got the resources," said another man, thin, with sparse graying hair.†   (source)
  • I come around the back corner, and there is the eroded hill, with its few sparse trees.†   (source)
  • Perfect round rings wafting up from her fleecy bush, still somewhat fine and sparse.†   (source)
  • It was too sparse to support the herd for long.†   (source)
  • Between her legs, sparse hair clings to a swell of flesh.†   (source)
  • King Hizdahr had allowed the fighting pits to remain open, but the crowds were sparse.†   (source)
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