Paucity vs Dearth - What's the difference?
paucity | dearth |
Fewness in number; too few.
* 1915 , , The Golden Slipper , problem 7:
* 2006 , Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, "
A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
* 1898 , , "At the Appetite-Cure":
* 1915 , , Michael O'Halloran , ch. 12:
(rfc-sense) A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.
(by extension) Scarcity; a lack or short supply.
* 1608 , William Shakespeare, King Lear :
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(obsolete) Dearness; the quality of being rare or costly.
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Dearth is a synonym of paucity.
As nouns the difference between paucity and dearth
is that paucity is fewness in number; too few while dearth is a period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.paucity
English
Noun
- But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.
Uncle Sam Wants You," Time , 13 July:
- Your tax refund might be late, owing to a paucity of number crunchers.
- Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food.
- Here is where the paucity of our language is made manifest.
Synonyms
* dearth, scantiness, scarcityExternal links
* * *dearth
English
Noun
(en noun)- I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth , dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.