Synonyms for scarce
skɛərsscarce

English Synonyms and AntonymsRate these synonyms:2.5 / 4 votes

1. scarce

   Unique is alone of its kind; rare is infrequent of its kind; great poems are rare; "Paradise Lost" is unique. To say of a thing that it is rare is simply to affirm that it is now seldom found, whether previously common or not; as, a rare old book; a rare word; to call a thing scarce implies that it was at some time more plenty, as when we say food or money is scarce. A particular fruit or coin may be rare; scarce applies to demand and use, and almost always to concrete things; to speak of virtue, genius, or heroism as scarce would be somewhat ludicrous. Rare has the added sense of precious, which is sometimes, but not necessarily, blended with that above given; as, a rare gem. Extraordinary, signifying greatly beyond the ordinary, is a neutral word, capable of a high and good sense or of an invidious, opprobrious, or contemptuous signification; as, extraordinary genius; extraordinary wickedness; an extraordinary assumption of power; extraordinary antics; an extraordinary statement is incredible without overwhelming proof.

   See synonyms for GENERAL; NORMAL; USUAL.

   Synonyms:
   curious, extraordinary, incomparable, infrequent, odd, peculiar, precious, rare, remarkable, singular, strange, uncommon, unique, unparalleled, unprecedented, unusual

Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and AntonymsRate these synonyms:4.0 / 1 vote

1. scarce

   Synonyms:
   rare, infrequent, unabundant, unique, uncommon, unusual, singular, precious, choice, few, wanting, sparse

   Antonyms:
   common, frequent, abundant, valueless, thick, plentiful

Princeton's WordNetRate these synonyms:3.2 / 10 votes

1. scarceadverb

   deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand

   "fresh vegetables were scarce during the drought"

   Antonyms:
   rank, overabundant, rich, long, lush, plentiful, teeming, rampant, ample, plethoric, verdant, abounding, torrential, plenteous, thick, riotous, abundant, copious, galore(ip), superabundant, profuse, luxuriant, easy, exuberant, rife, voluminous

2. barely, hardly, just, scarcely, scarceadverb

   only a very short time before

   "they could barely hear the speaker"; "we hardly knew them"; "just missed being hit"; "had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open"; "would have scarce arrived before she would have found some excuse to leave"- W.B.Yeats

   Synonyms:
   just, barely, hardly, scarcely, merely, scantily, exactly, simply, but, precisely, only, just now

   Antonyms:
   luxuriant, superabundant, abundant, plenteous, torrential, plethoric, overabundant, abounding, copious, galore(ip), long, rife, profuse, thick, teeming, riotous, voluminous, ample, rank, rich, plentiful, exuberant, easy, rampant, lush, verdant

Dictionary of English SynonymesRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. scarceadjective

   Synonyms:
   deficient, wanting, not plentiful, not abundant

2. scarceadjective

   Synonyms:
   rare, uncommon, infrequent

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated WordsRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. scarceadjective

   Synonyms:
   rare, unplentiful, deficient

PPDB, the paraphrase databaseRate these paraphrases:4.5 / 2 votes

1. List of paraphrases for "scarce":

   rare, meagre, limited, scant, few, uncommon, sparse, little, lean, infrequent, meager, low

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How to use scarce in a sentence?

1. Joachim Blatter:

   It is important for Swiss business to know what will happen with immigration and the pool of labor. For Switzerland, like many other countries, skilled labor will become scarce in the years ahead.

2. Tetsuya Fukuda:

   The biggest reason for participating in the Moatize project is to retain excellent quality metallurgical coal that is scarce globally, with the resource supercycle, we had been not able to buy any assets.

3. Arthur Caplan:

   The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.

4. Ahmed Sabah:

   Water became scarce and boats stopped coming to the area and after that our animals started to lose weight and then die. We gave them medicine, but in vain, they return home to lay on straw and die. We often slaughter them and we have to burn animals we find dead in the water .... We have lost a large number of our animals.

5. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek:

   The performance has not been bad ... Let's face it, growth is a scarce thing in today's world, turkey is the only sizeable country in this neighborhood that actually could provide the EU with some dynamism.