scarcity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English scarsete, also scarsite and skarste,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French escarceté, the Old Northern French form of Central Old French escharseté;^[5][6][2][3] the MED also gives Anglo-Norman variants such as escarcité.^[2] The French noun is formed from eschars (“scanty, scarce”), Old Northern French escars, the source of scarce, with the suffix of -ity.^[5][7][6][4] The OED traces the adjective to Vulgar Latin *scarsus, probably from an older *excarpsus, the past participle of *excarpō, which stands for excerpō (“to select out”), the source of excerpt.^[5][8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Frugality, stinginess, meanness: 1340–70, in Alexander and Dindimus, a sense obsolete after 1531.^[5][6] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300, in the sense of insufficiency or dearth.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, stinginess, followed the old sense of scarce, "niggardly".^[5][8] The sense of an insufficient supply in proportion to need, now the main one, is recorded from before 1400.^[5] From about 1450 the word was used of a dearth of food and other necessities in a community, or a period of such dearth.^[5] Chaucer used scarsete three times, and Gower once in the sense of stinginess.^[9] Johnson (1755) gave "smallness of quantity; not plenty; penury" as its first sense.^[10] In economics, scarcity value, a value raised by scarcity, is recorded from 1848, in Mill.^[5] From 1787 the word was also a name of the mangel-wurzel, also called scarcity root.^[5]

Timeline

• 1340–70 – frugality, stinginess (obsolete after 1531).^[5]
• c. 1380 – deficiency, shortcoming (obsolete by 1450).^[5]
• 1398 – scantiness of diet (obsolete after 1526).^[5]
• before 1400 – insufficiency of supply in proportion to need.^[5]
• c. 1450 – a dearth of the necessities of life; a time of dearth.^[5]
• 1663 – a small number of something unwelcome (rare).^[5]
• 1787 – the mangel-wurzel.^[5]
• 1848 – scarcity value, in Mill.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An insufficient supply of something in proportion to the need or demand; shortage: a scarcity of clean water.^[11][7][5]
2. The state of being rare or uncommon.^[11][7]
3. A time when food and other necessities are short; dearth.^[5][6]
4. (obsolete) Stinginess, parsimony.^[5][7][6]

Related words

• scarce
• scarcely
• excerpt

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins