Scarcity

//ˈskɛɹsɪti// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of something being scarce or deficient. uncountable

    "Praise […] owes its value only to its scarcity."

  2. 2
    a small and inadequate amount wordnet
  3. 3
    An inadequate amount of something; a shortage. countable

    "a scarcity of grain"

Synonyms

All synonyms
dearthdeficiencyinfrequencylackrarenessrarity

Example

More examples

"If scarcity were overcome, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today's society would no longer be necessary."

Etymology

From Old Northern French escarcete; by surface analysis, scarce + -ity.

Related phrases

artificial scarcitydigital scarcityroot of scarcity

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.