Sample Sentences for
scarcity
(editor-reviewed)

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    The economists disagree on how to allocate scarce resources.
    scarce = short in supply
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    The unrest lead to a scarcity of oil and thus to higher prices.
    scarcity = shortage
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    Food became scarce too, and more expensive.  (source)
    scarce = in short supply
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
  • •
    Game was scarce, forcing Franklin and his men to subsist on lichens scraped from boulders, singed deer hide, scavenged animal bones, their own boot leather, and finally one another's flesh.  (source)
    scarce = less than desired
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    Because of the scarcity of water, each camper was only allowed a four-minute shower.†  (source)
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    Scarceness o' victual 'ull keep: there's no need to be hasty wi' the cooking.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    He said, 'Always deal in scarcities.†  (source)
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    The guineas, too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only that my mother knew how to make her count.†  (source)
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    ...had Brian not been rescued when he was, had he been forced to go into hard fall, perhaps winter, it would have been very rough on him. ... Game becomes seemingly plentiful in the fall ... but in winter it gets scarce and sometimes simply nonexistent as...  (source)
    scarce = an amount that is less than desired
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    With the scarcity of water, they may even have had to return to the lake for refills.†  (source)
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    An' scarceness is what there's the biggest stock of i' that country.†  (source)
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    The scarcities, inflation, taxes, and profiteering, the incessant worries and enmities of war, were all ever-present.†  (source)
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    Jobs are scarce.  (source)
    scarce = available less than desired
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meaning too rare to warrant focus

Show 1 sentence
•
The dead man's knell Is there scarce asked for who, and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken.  (source)
scarce = hardly
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