Plenty vs Scanty - What's the difference?
plenty | scanty |
A more than adequate amount.
* 1798 , (Thomas Malthus), (An Essay on the Principle of Population):
More than sufficiently.
(label) , very.
* 26 June 2014 , A.A Dowd, AV Club Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler spoof rom-com clichés in They Came Together [http://www.avclub.com/review/paul-rudd-and-amy-poehler-spoof-rom-com-cliches-th-206220]
(label) much, enough
(label) many
(label) plentiful
* 1597 , Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part I, Act I, Scene IV:
* 1836 , The American Gardener's Magazine and Register , volume 2, page 279:
1000 English basic words
Somewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent.
* {{quote-book, year=1864–1865, author=Charles Dickens, title=
, passage=Present on the table, one scanty' pot of tea, one '''scanty''' loaf, two '''scanty''' pats of butter, two ' scanty rashers of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an abundance of handsome china bought a secondhand bargain.}}
* {{quote-book, year=1979, author=by B. Jonson, title=
, passage=Traditions older than paleoarctic, as scanty as the evidence may be, show clearly that colonization of Alberta and even as far north as southern Alaska came from the south.}}
Sparing; niggardly; parsimonious.
* I. Watts.
As a proper noun plenty
is a village in saskatchewan, canada.As an adjective scanty is
somewhat less than is needed in amplitude or extent.plenty
English
Noun
- We are lucky to live in a land of peace and plenty .
- During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage
Usage notes
While some dictionaries analyse this word as a noun, others analyse it as a pronoun,Macmillan]or as both a noun and a pronoun.[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/plenty oxforddictionaries.comHarrap's essential English Dictionary'' (1996)''Heinemann English Dictionary (2001)
Derived terms
* horn of plenty * land of plenty * plenteous * plentifulSynonyms
* abundance * profusionUsage notes
See the notes about the noun.Adverb
(-)- This office is plenty big enough for our needs.
- She was plenty mad at him.
- Seeing clichés mimicked this skillfully is plenty hilarious.
Determiner
(en determiner)- There'll be plenty time later for that
- Get a manicure. Plenty men do it.
Adjective
(en adjective)- if reasons were as plenty as blackberries
- Radishes are very plenty . Of cabbages a few heads of this year's crop have come to hand this week, and sold readily at quotations; [...]
Anagrams
*References
scanty
English
Adjective
(er)- In illustrating a point of difficulty, be not too scanty of words.