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The quality or condition of being scarce; smallness of quantity in proportion to the wants or demands; deficiency; lack of plenty; short supply; penury; as, a scarcity of grain; a great scarcity of beauties. Chaucer. A scarcity of snow would raise a mutiny at Naples. Addison. Praise . . . owes its value to its scarcity…

Hence, a very small quantity; a particle. I will not bate thee a scruple. Shak.

The quantity of eight bushels of grain. "A seam of oats." P. Plowman.

ent of the sulphur group, and analogous to sulphur in its compounds. It is found in small quantities with sulphur and some sulphur ores, and obtained in the free state as a dark reddish powder or crystalline mass, or as a dark metallic- looking substance. It exhibits under the action of light a remarkable variation in…

A short piece of land in arable ridges and furrows, of uncertain quantity; also, a ridge of land lying between two furrows. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]

Of or pertaining to the square root of the cube of a quantity. Semicubical parabola, a curve in which the ordinates are proportional to the square roots of the cubes of the abscissas.

A quantic of the seventh degree.

A quantic of the sixth degree.

A certain quantity; a portion; a part; a division; as, a small share of prudence.

A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw. The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands. Dryden.

Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty; as, a short supply of provisions, or of water.

To reduce or diminish in amount, quantity, or extent; to lessen; to abridge; to curtail; to contract; as, to shorten work, an allowance of food, etc. Here, where the subject is so fruitful, I am shortened by my chain. Dryden.

An instrument for detecting small quantities of iron in any substance by means of a very delicate combination of magnetic needles.

To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, or the like.

A great number, quantity, or sum; as, a sight of money. [Now colloquial]

spider (Nephila plumipes), native of the Southern United States, remarkable for the large quantity of strong silk it produces and for the great disparity in the sizes of the sexes. -- Silk thrower, Silk throwster, one who twists or spins silk, and prepares it for weaving. Brande & C. -- Silk tree (Bot.), an Asiatic l…

. J. W. Smith. Chitty. -- Simple equation (Alg.), an eqyation containing but one unknown quantity, and that quantity only in the first degree. -- Simple eye (Zoöl.), an eye having a single lens; -- opposed to Ant: compound eye. -- Simple interest. See under Interest. -- Simple larceny. (Law) See under Larceny. --…

. Simultaneous equations (Alg.), two or more equations in which the values of the unknown quantities entering them are the same at the same time in both or in all.

To bring low; to reduce in quantity; to waste. You sunk the river repeated draughts. Addison.

To drink or imbibe in small quantities; especially, to take in with the lips in small quantities, as a liquid; as, to sip tea. "Every herb that sips the dew." Milton.