scarcity

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: scar=ci=ty

CIDE DICTIONARY

scarcity, n. 

 The quality or condition of being scarce; smallness of quantity in proportion to the wants or demands; deficiency; lack of plenty; short supply; penury; as, a scarcity of grain; a great scarcity of beauties.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]
"A scarcity of snow would raise a mutiny at Naples."  [1913 Webster]
"Praise . . . owes its value to its scarcity."  [1913 Webster]
"The value of an advantage is enhanced by its scarceness."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Deficiency; lack; want; penury; dearth; rareness; rarity; infrequency.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

scarcity, n. (pl. -ies) (often foll. by of) a lack or inadequacy, esp. of food.

THESAURUS

scarcity

absence, chinchiness, chintziness, dearth, deficiency, exiguity, fewness, inadequacy, inadequateness, infrequence, infrequency, insufficiency, lack, meagerness, miserliness, need, niggardliness, occasionalness, paucity, poverty, rareness, rarity, restrictedness, scant, scant sufficiency, scantiness, scarceness, scrimpiness, seldomness, shortage, skimpiness, slowness, smallness, sparseness, sparsity, stinginess, stringency, thinness, tightness, uncommonness, underage, unfrequentness, uniqueness, unusualness, want

ROGET THESAURUS

scarcity

Insufficiency

N insufficiency, inadequacy, inadequateness, incompetence, deficiency, imperfection, shortcoming, paucity, stint, scantiness, none to spare, bare subsistence, scarcity, dearth, want, need, lack, poverty, exigency, inanition, starvation, famine, drought, dole, mite, pittance, short allowance, short commons, half rations, banyan day, emptiness, poorness, depletion, vacancy, flaccidity, ebb tide, low water, a beggarly account of empty boxes, indigence, insolvency, drain of resources, impoverish, stint, put on short allowance, do insufficiently, scotch the snake, Adj, insufficient, inadequate, too little, not enough, unequal to, incompetent, weighed in the balance and found wanting, perfunctory, deficient, wanting imperfect, ill-furnished, ill-provided, ill- stored, ill-off, slack, at a low ebb, empty, vacant, bare, short of, out of, destitute of, devoid of, bereft of, denuded of, dry, drained, unprovided, unsupplied, unfurnished, unreplenished, unfed, unstored, untreasured, empty-handed, meager, poor, thin, scrimp, sparing, spare, stinted, starved, starving, halfstarved, famine-stricken, famished, jejune, scant, scarce, not to be had, not to be had for love or money, not to be had at any price, scurvy, stingy, at the end of one's tether, without resources, in want, in debt, insufficiently, in default of, for want of, failing, semper avarus eget.