Paltry vs Scarce - What's the difference?
paltry | scarce |
trashy, trivial, of little value
meager; worthless; pitiful; trifling
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:
As adjectives the difference between paltry and scarce
is that paltry is trashy, trivial, of little value while scarce is uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.As an adverb scarce is
scarcely, only just.paltry
English
Alternative forms
* (l), (l), (l)Adjective
(er)- This is indeed a paltry flyer about a silly product.
- She made some paltry excuse and left.
- Could someone hope to survive on such a paltry income?
- Student grants these days are paltry , and many students have to take out loans.
Usage notes
* Nouns to which "paltry" is often applied: sum, rate, amount, number, price, salary, wages, fellow, pay, excuse, income, gain, compensation.Anagrams
* *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.