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Scarce vs Rate - What's the difference?

scarce | rate |

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 rate is

rot (process of something decaying or rotting ).

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

    *

    rate

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl), from . (wikipedia rate)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) The estimated worth of something; value.
  • * 1599 , William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet , V.3:
  • There shall no figure at such rate be set, / As that of true and faithfull Iuliet.
  • The proportional relationship between one amount, value etc. and another.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=No hiding place
  • , date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.}}
  • Speed.
  • * Clarendon
  • Many of the horse could not march at that rate , nor come up soon enough.
  • The relative speed of change or progress.
  • The price of (an individual) thing; cost.
  • A set price or charge for all examples of a given case, commodity, service etc.
  • A wage calculated in relation to a unit of time.
  • Any of various taxes, especially those levied by a local authority.
  • (nautical) A class into which ships were assigned based on condition, size etc.; by extension, rank.
  • (obsolete) Established portion or measure; fixed allowance; ration.
  • * Spenser
  • The one right feeble through the evil rate / Of food which in her duress she had found.
  • (obsolete) Order; arrangement.
  • * Spenser
  • Thus sat they all around in seemly rate .
  • (obsolete) Ratification; approval.
  • (Chapman)
  • (horology) The gain or loss of a timepiece in a unit of time.
  • daily rate'''; hourly '''rate ; etc.
    Derived terms
    * at any rate * exchange rate * flat rate * interest rate * mortality rate * failure rate * rate limiting

    Verb

    (rat)
  • To assign or be assigned a particular rank or level.
  • She is rated fourth in the country.
  • To evaluate or estimate the value of.
  • They rate his talents highly.
  • * South
  • To rate a man by the nature of his companions is a rule frequent indeed, but not infallible.
  • To consider or regard.
  • He rated this book brilliant.
  • To deserve; to be worth.
  • The view here hardly rates a mention in the travel guide.
  • * 1955 , edition, ISBN 0553249592, page 101:
  • Only two assistant district attorneys rate corner offices, and Mandelbaum wasn't one of them.
  • To determine the limits of safe functioning for a machine or electrical device.
  • The transformer is rated at 10 watts.
  • (transitive, chiefly, British) To evaluate a property's value for the purposes of local taxation.
  • (informal) To like; to think highly of.
  • The customers don't rate the new burgers.
  • To have position (in a certain class).
  • She rates among the most excellent chefs in the world.
    He rates as the best cyclist in the country.
  • To have value or standing.
  • This last performance of hers didn't rate very high with the judges.
  • To ratify.
  • * Chapman
  • to rate the truce
  • To ascertain the exact rate of the gain or loss of (a chronometer) as compared with true time.
  • Synonyms
    * (have position in a certain class) rank

    Derived terms

    * rating

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

    (rat)
  • To berate, scold.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Go, rate thy minions, proud, insulting boy!
  • * Barrow
  • Conscience is a check to beginners in sin, reclaiming them from it, and rating them for it.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , John IX:
  • Then rated they hym, and sayde: Thou arte hys disciple.
  • * , I.56:
  • Andronicus'' the Emperour, finding by chance in his pallace certaine principall men very earnestly disputing against ''Lapodius about one of our points of great importance, taunted and rated them very bitterly, and threatened if they gave not over, he would cause them to be cast into the river.
  • * 1825 , Sir (Walter Scott), , ch.iv:
  • He beheld him, his head still muffled in the veila man borne down and crushed to the earth by the burden of his inward feelings.
  • * 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 2, ch.XV, ''Practical — Devotional
  • The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastens home to . The successful monk, arriving at Ely, is rated for a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say that (Elmset) was the place meant.

    Anagrams

    *