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oportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. You tell him silver is scarcer now in England, and therefore risen one fifth in value. Locke. The scarcest of all is a Pescennius Niger on a medallion well preserved. Addison.

With difficulty; hardly; scantly; barely; but just. With a scarce well-lighted flame. Milton. The eldest scarcely five year was of age. Chaucer. Slowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides. Dryden. He had scarcely finished, when the laborer arrived who had been sent for my ransom. W. Irwing.

An offset where a wall or bank of earth, etc., retreats, leaving a shelf or footing.

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…

nd collectively, one and all. [Obs.] "Displeased all and some." Fairfax. -- All but. (a) Scarcely; not even. [Obs.] Shak. (b) Almost; nearly. "The fine arts were all but proscribed." Macaulay. -- All hollow, entirely, completely; as, to beat any one all hollow. [Low] -- All one, the same thing in effect; that is, who…

greatest part. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Acts xxvi. 28. Almost never, scarcely ever. -- Almost nothing, scarcely anything.

ring shrubs, mostly natives of China or of North America; false honeysuckle. The genus is scarcely distinct from Rhododendron.

But just; without any excess; with nothing to spare ( of quantity, time, etc.); hence, scarcely; hardly; as, there was barely enough for all; he barely escaped.

To move nimbly in haste; to move so lightly as scarcely to be perceived; as, to brush by. Snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind. Goldsmith.

o have been given originally to the Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve. You shall scarce find any bay or shallow shore, or cove of sand, where you may not take many clampes, or lobsters, or both, at your pleasure. Capt. John Smith (1616). Clams, or clamps, is a shellfish not much unlike a coclke; it lieth under…

ging; compliant; as, a complaisant gentleman. There are to whom my satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough. Pope.

t manners or principles. This is a defect in the first make of same men's minds which can scarce ever be corrected afterwards. T. Burnet.

A heathlike plant of the genus Empetrum, and its fruit, a black, scarcely edible berry; -- also called crakeberry.

current money in Abraham's time is past doubt. Arbuthnot. Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current. Shak. His current value, which is less or more as men have occasion for him. Grew.

The ringdove or wood pigeon. Scarce with cushat's homely song can vie. Sir W. Scott.

orthy. He could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any not acidulated with scorn. Macaulay.

dart; anything that pierces or wounds like a dart. The artful inquiry, whose venomed dart Scarce wounds the hearing while it stabs the heart. Hannan More.

Destructible. [R.] Plants . . . scarcely destroyable by the weather. Derham.

disagreeable. [Obs.] Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons, Which at the are scarce found to distaste. Shak.

er ill accident is drouth at the spindling of corn. Bacon. One whose drouth [thirst], Yet scarce allayed, still eyes the current stream. Milton. In the dust and drouth of London life. Tennyson.