Narrow vs Scarce - What's the difference?
narrow | scarce | Related terms |
Having a small width; not wide; slim; slender; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
* {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
, chapter=1 * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=14 * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=
, magazine=(American Scientist), title= Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
* Bishop Wilkins
(figuratively) Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.
Contracted; of limited scope; illiberal; bigoted.
* Macaulay
Having a small margin or degree.
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 18, author=Ben Dirs
, title=Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia, work=BBC Sport
(dated) Limited as to means; straitened; pinching.
Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
* Smalridge
Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
* Milton
(phonetics) Formed (as a vowel) by a close position of some part of the tongue in relation to the palate; or (according to Bell) by a tense condition of the pharynx; distinguished from wide.
To reduce in width or extent; to contract.
To get narrower.
(knitting) To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.
(chiefly, in the plural) A narrow passage, especially a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.
* Gladstone
Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.
* (John Locke)
* , chapter=3
, title= Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of .
* (John Milton)
Scarcely, only just.
* Milton
* 1854 , (Edgar Allen Poe), (The Raven):
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4:
* 1931 , William Faulkner, Sanctuary , Vintage 1993, p. 122:
Narrow is a related term of scarce.
As adjectives the difference between narrow and scarce
is that narrow is having a small width; not wide; slim; slender; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth while scarce is uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.As a verb narrow
is to reduce in width or extent; to contract.As a noun narrow
is (chiefly|in the plural) a narrow passage, especially a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.As an adverb scarce is
scarcely, only just.narrow
English
Adjective
(er)citation, passage=She was like a Beardsley Salome , he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.}}
citation, passage=Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime. Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the house.}}
Catherine Clabby
Focus on Everything, passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. That’s because the lenses that are excellent at magnifying tiny subjects produce a narrow depth of field. A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that.}}
- The Jews were but a small nation, and confined to a narrow compass in the world.
- a narrow''' mind; '''narrow views
- a narrow understanding
- The Republicans won by a narrow majority.
citation, passage=As in their narrow defeat of Argentina last week, England were indisciplined at the breakdown, and if Georgian fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili had remembered his kicking boots, Johnson's side might have been behind at half-time.}}
- narrow circumstances
- a very narrow and stinted charity
- But first with narrow search I must walk round / This garden, and no corner leave unspied.
Antonyms
* wide * broadDerived terms
* narrowboat, narrow boat * narrow-minded * narrownessVerb
(en verb)- We need to narrow the search.
- The road narrows .
Synonyms
* taperNoun
(en noun)- the Narrows of New York harbor
- Near the island lay on one side the jaws of a dangerous narrow .
scarce
English
(wikipedia scarce)Adjective
(er)- You tell him silver is scarcer now in England, and therefore risen one fifth in value.
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.}}
- A region scarce of prey.
Adverb
(-)- With a scarce well-lighted flame.
- And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure that I heard you [...].
- Yet had I scarce set foot in the passage when I stopped, remembering how once already this same evening I had played the coward, and run home scared with my own fears.
- Upon the barred and slitted wall the splotched shadow of the heaven tree shuddered and pulsed monstrously in scarce any wind.