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Scarce vs Limit - What's the difference?

scarce | limit |

As an adjective scarce

is uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.

As an adverb scarce

is scarcely, only just.

As a noun limit is

limit (restriction).

scarce

English

(wikipedia scarce)

Adjective

(er)
  • Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.
  • * (John Locke)
  • You tell him silver is scarcer now in England, and therefore risen one fifth in value.
  • * , chapter=3
  • , title= 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.}}
  • Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of .
  • * (John Milton)
  • A region scarce of prey.

    Adverb

    (-)
  • Scarcely, only just.
  • * Milton
  • With a scarce well-lighted flame.
  • * 1854 , (Edgar Allen Poe), (The Raven):
  • And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure that I heard you [...].
  • * 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4:
  • 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.
  • * 1931 , William Faulkner, Sanctuary , Vintage 1993, p. 122:
  • Upon the barred and slitted wall the splotched shadow of the heaven tree shuddered and pulsed monstrously in scarce any wind.

    See also

    * make oneself scarce

    Anagrams

    *

    limit

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl), from (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
  • There are several existing limits to executive power.
    Two drinks is my limit tonight.
  • * 1839 , (Charles Dickens), Nicholas Nickleby , chapter 21:
  • It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit ,
  • * 1922 , , Ulysses , episode 17:
  • Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space,
  • * 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times , “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution”:
  • At the time, there seemed to be no limit to the size of ever-larger private equity deals, with banks falling over each other to arrange financing on generous terms and to invest money from their own private equity arms.
  • (mathematics) A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge).
  • The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
  • (mathematics) Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
  • Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
  • (category theory) Given diagram F'' : ''J'' → ''C'', a cone (''L'', ''φ'') from ''L'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' is the ''limit'' of ''F'' if it has the universal property that for any other cone (''N'', ''ψ'') from ''N'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' there is a unique morphism ''u'' : ''N'' → ''L'' such that for all ''X'' ∈ Ob(''J ), \phi_X \circ u = \psi_X .
  • (poker) Short for fixed limit.
  • The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
  • the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
  • * Alexander Pope
  • As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
  • (obsolete) The space or thing defined by limits.
  • * Shakespeare
  • The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.
  • (obsolete) That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
  • * Shakespeare
  • the dateless limit of thy dear exile
  • * Shakespeare
  • The limit of your lives is out.
  • (obsolete) A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
  • (logic, metaphysics) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
  • Synonyms
    * (restriction) bound, boundary, limitation, restriction
    Derived terms
    * age limit * central limit theorem * city limits * elastic limit * in the limit * limit down * limit up * limitation * limitless * lower limit * outer limit * the sky is the limit * to the limit * time limit * unlimited * upper limit
    Descendants
    * German: (l)

    See also

    * bound * function

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (poker) Being a fixed limit game.
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) ; see noun.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.
  • *
  • [The Chinese government] has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.
  • (mathematics) To have a limit in a particular set.
  • (obsolete) To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
  • Synonyms
    * (restrict) cap; restrict; withstrain