scant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English scant, also skant,^[2] borrowed from Old Norse skamt, the neuter of skammr (“short, brief”),^{[3][4][5][6][2]} from Proto-Germanic *skammaz (“short”).^[7][8][4] It is cognate with Old English scamm and Old High German scam, both meaning short.^[6][7][4] The Old Norse neuter ending -t is kept, as in thwart, quart and want.^[3][9][10] Orel calls the Germanic adjective of unknown origin and compares Avestan kamna- (“little”);^[7] Barnhart and Köbler connect it with Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱem- (“curtailed, maimed, hornless”) (Pokorny 929),^[6][8] and Etymonline suggests an original sense "hornless".^[4] Klein relates it to scamp and skimp.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sparing, not generous: about 1366, in Chaucer's A.B.C.^[3][11] The noun, scarcity or dearth, is recorded from before 1350,^[3][2] and Barnhart dates the adjective to probably before 1350.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the adjective meant limited or barely sufficient in number or amount, limited in space or time, and grudging or niggardly.^[2] The sense "sparing, parsimonious" died out after 1651,^[3] while "barely sufficient" (before 1400) became the main one.^[3][12] From the 16th century it was also used of things limited in extent (before 1533) and of a person poorly supplied with something, scant of (before 1595).^[3] Sailors from 1600 called a wind scant when it blew too far ahead for the ship,^[3][10] and the verb, first "to become scarce" (1436), took on the sense "to keep short of, to stint" in the 1560s and 1570s.^[3][4][6] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford note that the adjective has largely been replaced by scanty,^[12][13] which Hoad dates to the 16th century.^[12] The use before a bare noun, scant attention, is recorded from 1852, in Dickens,^[3] and the sense "barely amounting to", a scant two miles, from 1856, chiefly in American English.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1350 – noun, scarcity, dearth.^[3][2]
• c. 1366 – sparing, parsimonious (obsolete by 1651).^[3]
• before 1400 – barely sufficient, not abundant.^[3]
• 1436 – verb, to become scarce (obsolete by 1624).^[3]
• 1492 – adverb, hardly, scarcely.^[3]
• 1565 – verb, to keep someone short of something.^[3]
• 1600 – of the wind, blowing too far ahead.^[3]
• 1852 – before a bare noun, very little, less than enough.^[3]
• 1856 – barely amounting to a stated quantity.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Barely enough; meagre or limited: The report paid scant attention to the costs.^[14][15][3]
2. Just short of a stated amount: a scant three metres.^[14][3]
3. Having only a small supply of something, with of.^[14][3]
4. (obsolete) Sparing or parsimonious.^[3][15][16]

Verb

1. To provide with too little; to stint or limit.^[14][15][3]
2. To deal with something too briefly or carelessly; to skimp.^[14]

Adverb

1. (dialect) Hardly, scarcely.^[3][15]

Word family

• scantly
• scantness
• scanty

Related words

• skimp
• scamp
• thwart
• want

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.