All 3 Uses
scarcity
in
The Boy on the Wooden Box
(Auto-generated)
- 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.†
p. 37.9 *scarce = in short supply OR barely or hardly (by a small margin)
- With the Germans losing the war on both fronts, food became even more scarce.†
p. 159.1
- Jobs were scarce and so was food.†
p. 175.5
Definitions:
-
(1)
(scarcity) shortage (having an amount that is less than desired)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) More rarely (and typically in classic literature), scarce can be short for scarcely or hardly or barely or by a small margin -- such as in "She was scarce ten years old," or "I scarce know why."