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scarcity
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  • Few women would take such a risk, so midwives were scarce: on the day Judy left for Wyoming, Mother became the only midwife for a hundred miles.†   (source)
  • With the scarcity of water, they may even have had to return to the lake for refills.†   (source)
  • But when paper and pencils became scarce, her shop closed.†   (source)
  • Because of the scarcity of water, each camper was only allowed a four-minute shower.†   (source)
  • Hide it where no one can get it, because you know how scarce socks can get in our house.†   (source)
  • Humans were scarce, and the swamps and woods teemed with wildlife—probably a pretty good time to be a burrowing owl, Roy mused.†   (source)
  • "Money's too scarce," he continued as if he had not heard, "and folks like that are a poor risk.†   (source)
  • Do you realize how scarce nice kids are nowadays?†   (source)
  • The temple sentry was to have made herself scarce when she heard him coming.†   (source)
  • I could make myself scarce if you wanted to talk to Trudy then.†   (source)
  • When it didn't rain, which was often in Ahwaz's arid climate, money was scarce.†   (source)
  • But such desirable victims had grown scarce.†   (source)
  • Batteries are scarce.†   (source)
  • In the Revolution's aftermath—with its economic declines, failed crops, and halted trade—refined ingredients became as scarce in Moscow as butterflies at sea.†   (source)
  • Virtuous fathers are in short supply in Jackson, but they are equally scarce in the lives of my grandparents' grandchildren.†   (source)
  • After the war, when no one in Germany could buy anything and even repair work was scarce, Uncle Max had spent years trying to sell their jewelry abroad.†   (source)
  • Wes found another option: he decided to make himself scarce.†   (source)
  • One might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for living in a zoo, since the major difference between a zoo and the wild is the absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their respective abundance and scarcity in the second.†   (source)
  • She was, I don't know, scarce.†   (source)
  • The drugs became scarce, which prompted state correctional authorities to obtain them illegally, without complying with FDA rules that regulate the interstate sale and transfer of drugs.†   (source)
  • He wanted to give her some hope, no matter how scarce.†   (source)
  • They're scarce as hen's teeth.†   (source)
  • Half a century ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce.†   (source)
  • They make themselves scarce.†   (source)
  • During the week, her father had been scarce.†   (source)
  • He stayed in the tree, scarce daring to breathe, while the moon crept slowly across the black sky.†   (source)
  • The other servants make themselves scarce, moving to an elevated platform surrounded by sheer curtains.†   (source)
  • Food was scarce at school.†   (source)
  • He tells her times are hard, jobs are scarce, and she says, Is it coddin' me you are?†   (source)
  • Nicholas, the manager, had not yet come back with the cattle he had been forced to go buy; the scarcity of food had made them kill the animals they depended on, which he was now trying to replace.†   (source)
  • After a little while I would walk home, giving my fare to my mother, since even before the war, in my family, money was scarce.†   (source)
  • Is it foolishness that there's scarce a house in this town but has a sick child in it?†   (source)
  • Forgive me, but I don't like crossing things out, and in these times of scarcity, tossing away a piece of paper is clearly taboo.†   (source)
  • If they are caught inside, it will be hard to escape, but they count on the scarcity of migra checkpoints in northern Mexico.†   (source)
  • The Termites born before 1911, though, graduated from college at the height of the Depression, when job opportunities were scarce, and they were already in their late thirties when the Second World War hit, meaning that when they were drafted, they had to disrupt careers and families and adult lives that were already well under way.†   (source)
  • Right now I suggest we make ourselves scarce.†   (source)
  • You will find food for me if it is scarce.†   (source)
  • I'm afraid that their race has become rather scarce recently.†   (source)
  • My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top.†   (source)
  • He sent regular deliveries of tea and sugar, as well as chocolates, which were becoming scarce even in Gion.†   (source)
  • The Civil War had consumed most of the good horses in the South; they were scarce and valuable.†   (source)
  • Fall was supposed to be the year's busiest time, but travelers were scarce lately.†   (source)
  • For many, the expansion of distance because of limited transportation-EMVs were unreliable, skimmers scarce-and the contraction of artificial consciousness due to absence of datasphere, no access to the All Thing, and only one fatline transmitter-all led to a renewal of creative energies, a new realization of what it meant to be human and an artist.†   (source)
  • Often a small piece of meat in a vegetable dish would be passed from person to person because it was so scarce.†   (source)
  • Though there was little snow, the cold came early and stayed late, and fuel was scarce.†   (source)
  • Human bodies to make into ancillaries weren't exactly a scarce resource.†   (source)
  • Cloth was getting scarce, and leather, because the Continental troops needed them for clothing and shoes.†   (source)
  • Newspapers as scarce as hen's teeth, and a literacy rate made to match.†   (source)
  • But news was really scarce, except for the part some members of the media invented.†   (source)
  • I wonder if Nathaniel's take on race has something to do with having left an all-black neighborhood in Cleveland and ending up in an elite New York school where blacks were scarce.†   (source)
  • We were walking together now, fast, nearing the Seine, moving so swiftly and artfully through a gathering of men that they scarce saw us, that we scarce saw them.†   (source)
  • Aureliano Segundo thought without saying so that the evil was not in the world but in some hidden place in the mysterious heart of Petra Cotes, where something had happened during the deluge that had turned the animals sterile and made money scarce.†   (source)
  • Food was scarce; days went by when we had little more than rubbery potatoes in weak broth.†   (source)
  • 'Anyway, he made himself scarce.†   (source)
  • The anxiety of scarcity had arrived: the country was swept with rumors about products supposedly going to disappear, and people bought anything they could, without thinking, as a precaution.†   (source)
  • Toilet paper was scarce, too.†   (source)
  • Any "realistic" review of the AIDS virus when it was first appearing in Africa would probably have led experts and government officials to conclude that the virus was of little significance for human health and that scarce research funds should not be allocated to it—after all, it was just a virus that infected a handful of Africans, and all it did was suppress their immune systems.†   (source)
  • Though food was scarce, warmth was their main concern, and at night they would sit and talk, trying to keep each other from the loneliness and fears that threatened to overcome them.†   (source)
  • Depression-era scarcity gave way to a cornucopia of new foods on the shelves of new suburban supermarkets.†   (source)
  • Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.†   (source)
  • I could go on for hours, but time is scarce.†   (source)
  • Adult organs from people dying of trauma were scarce enough; a child donor was exceedingly rare.†   (source)
  • Later, I would learn that money was always scarce at the yellow house, and these challenges provided some balance of cash flow from one person to another.†   (source)
  • Clouds were scarcer than cash money, and cash money was scarce enough.†   (source)
  • The scarcity of armor.†   (source)
  • I have a whole lot of corn—and you know how scarce it is at this time of year—and you can have it all, if only you will do a little swimming in the pond on the edge of the wood.†   (source)
  • I kept looking for another job—my journal is full of shoe-store interviews and office-supply-store applications—but like in any suburb during the summer, jobs were scarce once mid-summer hit.†   (source)
  • Attendance is too irregular and books too scarce, even in the advanced sections, to actually teach many lessons during class.†   (source)
  • He had to find somewhere to lie low until the bruises on his face began to fade and he could make himself scarce.†   (source)
  • Wherever I went, tea would be set out, weak tea where money was scarce.†   (source)
  • My dream led me into your world scarce ten minutes since.†   (source)
  • Vendors scarce tonight.†   (source)
  • This is where it came in handy to be in tight with Pop. The rules of scarcity govern prison life: accumulate when the opportunity presents itself, figure out what to do with your loot later.†   (source)
  • I searched the ravines for several days before I found it, trees being very scarce on the Island of the Blue Dolphins.†   (source)
  • Hands on knees, he bent to study the face of the new-born, that countenance so ambiguous to our eyes, scarce stamped yet with the common seal of humanity.†   (source)
  • The three of them had put Pilgrim away for the night and then Joe, with no more than a look from Tom, had made himself scarce, saying he had homework to do.†   (source)
  • To teach Essey how to cook steak or mashed potatoes would require extensive shopping trips, searching for scarce ingredients.†   (source)
  • I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.†   (source)
  • Nations whose resources weren't just limited but scarce had to make the best possible uses of the little they had.†   (source)
  • Food remained extremely scarce and dear.†   (source)
  • There was no sound but the sound of their own feet; the dull stump of Gimli's dwarf-boots; the heavy tread of Boromir; the light step of Legolas; the soft, scarce-heard patter of hobbit-feet; and in the rear the slow firm footfalls of Aragorn with his long stride.†   (source)
  • If Mortenson had known how scarce and precious sugar was to the Balti, how rarely they used it themselves, he would have refused the second cup of tea.†   (source)
  • And, since money was scarce, helping out in their fathers' businesses and tobacco fields; lending a hand in the coal mine, at the mill.†   (source)
  • You get to drop me off and then you make yourselves scarce till you pick me up in two hours and then we tell Hollis that we spent the afternoon running around the country.†   (source)
  • And when the shriveled fruit became scarce, they began using the fruit from the jar.†   (source)
  • SOON ANIMALS IN the hills around us became scarce, driven from their homes by the presence of so many people or dead—as so many of us died—from the cruelty of that winter.†   (source)
  • The rector had scarce begun his meal, and so I thought to save the news until he had done with it.†   (source)
  • Food's getting scarce, and the Germans are nearly as hungry as we are.†   (source)
  • It was a chaotic scene, and it was clear that some were displeased with the ferryman for transporting goblins when time was scarce and many desired passage across.†   (source)
  • Still, there is a good chance that Mom made herself scarce before things got too ugly.†   (source)
  • The money was scarce, and Burton often had to go begging to foundations and philanthropists.†   (source)
  • Food had become so scarce that I was no longer stopping to collect it.†   (source)
  • Later the trees become scarce and spindly, with large areas of grass and underbrush between them.†   (source)
  • Computermen scarce.†   (source)
  • The tribes hold a dragon's treasure in their hands, but gold and jewels do not provide warmth on a winter night, nor food when game is scarce.†   (source)
  • But, like lobsters in Maine, crabs are getting scarce, the island is losing population, and there is increasing contact with the outside world— all a common recipe for dialect dissipation, as the linguists call it.†   (source)
  • Then again, they might get back to camp on time, and cover was scarce.†   (source)
  • She shook her head and pointed her chin at Simon; Eric raised an eyebrow and gave Simon a Later, man clap on the shoulder before making himself scarce.†   (source)
  • But jobs were scarce.†   (source)
  • The city had suffered such scarcity that "starvation balls" had replaced the standard debutante and charity galas.†   (source)
  • Alvin scarce heard the search go on around him.†   (source)
  • Even on our limited acreage, we had a milk cow that was pastured on half the land and staked out alongside the road when grass was scarce.†   (source)
  • I sat with a start, unable to breathe with the sensation of darkness closing in, air growing scarce, the panic that causes the best of swimmers to lose control and fight the one who has come to help, the panic that forces humans to riot and stampede, for air, for space, for freedom, the little and the weak shoved to the bottom, to the side, out of the way.†   (source)
  • And paper and stamp scarce.†   (source)
  • But credit is at its lowest because of insecurity, not a scarcity of money.†   (source)
  • In a land where bread was scarce and women carried water from the Euphrates, the chances of finding a working scanner were almost zero.†   (source)
  • The Hamilton children went bare-foot, and their overalls were patched and food was sometimes scarce, to pay for the crisp blueprints with cogs and planes and elevations.†   (source)
  • Even the rabbits were scarce that winter.†   (source)
  • Arctic hares were present; but they were very scarce and so fleet of foot that a wolf could not hope to catch one unless he was extremely lucky.†   (source)
  • Compared to the Andrews clan, the Welty family at the time of the first visit I remember was very scarce in the way of uncles and cousins and kin of an older generation.†   (source)
  • JAMES shuts up, makes himself scarce†   (source)
  • In 1947 jobs were scarce, especially jobs in publishing, but a stroke of luck had landed me employment with one of the largest publishers of books, where I was made "junior editor"—a euphemism for manuscript reader.†   (source)
  • They may be a bit scarce now.†   (source)
  • After this the officials began to make themselves scarce.†   (source)
  • Is this not a time of scarcity?†   (source)
  • He had forgotten the implacable law of scarcity.†   (source)
  • [BERENGER tries to make himself scarce, not to be seen by DAISY†   (source)
  • When souls came weeping to the altar he scarce dared to rejoice, remembering that soul who had not bowed, whose blood, it might be, would be required of him at judgment.†   (source)
  • There has been no scarcity of either contemptuous criticism or lavish praise for both the Senate as a whole and individual Senators.†   (source)
  • Alan took the first watch; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I was shaken up to take the second.   (source)
    scarce = barely or hardly (by a small margin; or an amount that is less than desired)
  • "We're not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons," said Marilla drily, "especially as they're rather scarce in Avonlea."   (source)
    scarce = in short supply
  • Even before the Quarter Quell, people were starting to stock up on scarce supplies.†   (source)
  • We took what we could, but food's been so scarce.†   (source)
  • When in funds she no doubt buys it, he thinks; but cash has been scarce, and he has been careless.†   (source)
  • Was it true that beaver were getting scarce?†   (source)
  • I am too important, too scarce, for that.†   (source)
  • Kathy thought it best to make her family scarce.†   (source)
  • What's left makes a mighty poor living, game gettin' so scarce.†   (source)
  • Catelyn could scarce believe what she was hearing.†   (source)
  • Was it a respectable hotel or, because rooms were scarce, a cheap dive, a harbourside flophouse?†   (source)
  • Electricity is scarce but smiles are not.†   (source)
  • Peter gave it to him a few times, but Boche soon made himself scarce.†   (source)
  • When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.†   (source)
  • If they took you for a witch right now I'd scarce blame them.†   (source)
  • I could scarce credit the number, but it was on everyone's lips.†   (source)
  • With the Germans losing the war on both fronts, food became even more scarce.†   (source)
  • I always offer The Abbot an apple but he won't eat it because of the scarcity of teeth in his head.†   (source)
  • Leah did at least have the brains to make herself scarce.†   (source)
  • Folks could scarce credit this, neither.†   (source)
  • He wriggled free, his throat so tight he could scarce talk.†   (source)
  • Late in the season like this, Matt knew, sugar was scarce and dear to the Indians.†   (source)
  • I could scarce credit how hungry men with frozen feet could win a war.†   (source)
  • You of all people can scarce fault her for that.†   (source)
  • This is early to come calling, scarce past dawn.†   (source)
  • Jobs right now are scarce with the recession and all, but ...there is an option....†   (source)
  • Meat and cheese are scarce, they are rationed.†   (source)
  • My noble father labors so diligently that I scarce see him anymore.†   (source)
  • He knew the manner of it too, a quick dip into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant's head.†   (source)
  • Right now Tutsi elites were enjoying almost all the scarce wealth and privileges.†   (source)
  • I made myself scarce, having no wish to be questioned about it in Miraz's torture chamber.†   (source)
  • But wages were still low everywhere, and money was scarce.†   (source)
  • When more men in trucks came by offering the refugees rides to Murambi, Deo made himself scarce.†   (source)
  • Yet when resources are scarce, priorities are essential.†   (source)
  • Scarce—what con fetches along a spyglass when transported?†   (source)
  • It was true that game was scarce, but that wasn't the reason Luke hunted by himself.†   (source)
  • During the war, when medical students were scarce, the hospitals reluctantly threw open their doors.†   (source)
  • On good days, he might score a newspaper to read-that helps-but they're scarce.†   (source)
  • Together Alice and I searched the scarce supplies for Thanksgiving dinner.†   (source)
  • Even the Trident was scarce secure so long as the Lord of the Crossing withheld his allegiance.†   (source)
  • It passed few habitations, and of those the dwellers were not yet abroad, since it was scarce day.†   (source)
  • When trade decreases, money becomes scarce.†   (source)
  • She had also grown fond of Italian wines, bottles of which were scarce in Ford County.†   (source)
  • Lord Nestor had scarce looked at her twice, but the prospect of him coming here terrified her.†   (source)
  • Though well past forty, he was as yet unwrinkled, with scarce a line to tell of the passage of time.†   (source)
  • Shoes became scarce, and paper, and silk.†   (source)
  • If she had Dryad's blood in her she could scarce do it better.†   (source)
  • Her bowl was empty, though she could scarce remember tasting the porridge.†   (source)
  • The chronic scarcity of officers strongly affected my duties in Blackie's Blackguards.†   (source)
  • I imagine they're about as scarce as the buffalo.†   (source)
  • Tyrion scarce touched his food, Sansa noticed, though he drank several cups of the wine.†   (source)
  • Others—the old, the young, the feeble—could scarce move at all.†   (source)
  • I've heard tales, things I can scarce believe, even of a Bolton.†   (source)
  • "Men are very scarce to be sure," Abigail had written by way of explanation to her own John.†   (source)
  • Rosby was scarce more than a wide place in the road; Sansa would have had no reason to linger here.†   (source)
  • Money is scarce, and committed as we are to India and China, we are stretched very thin.†   (source)
  • it would take only a dozan (a two-rial coin), worth about half a cent, and somewhat scarce.†   (source)
  • It was modest and becoming, though scarce richer than something a serving girl might wear.†   (source)
  • Water was scarce and the horse soon too lame to ride.†   (source)
  • The trouble was, Griff scarce seemed to eat.†   (source)
  • "He has," said a voice scarce stronger than a whisper.†   (source)
  • Renly will scarce have unlimbered his siege engines before Father takes him in the rear.†   (source)
  • Last night's supper had congealed beside his elbow, scarce touched.†   (source)
  • Corbray scarce left her side for half a year.†   (source)
  • The four of them sat in the dark tower, scarce daring to breathe.†   (source)
  • No, Lancel scarce thinks at all, this is Cersei's doing.†   (source)
  • Buffalo were scarce, and the fort not well provisioned.†   (source)
  • Jaime ...I felt so lost with Father dead, I scarce knew what I was saying.†   (source)
  • Half our men are so weak they can scarce put one foot before another.†   (source)
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