different between narrow vs scarce

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?næ???/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?næ?o?/, /?n??o?/
• (Mary–marry–merry distinction)
• (Mary–marry–merry merger)
• Rhymes: -ær??

Etymology 1

From Middle English narow, narowe, narewe, narwe, naru, from Old English nearu (“narrow, strait, confined, constricted, not spacious, limited, petty; limited, poor, restricted; oppressive, causing anxiety (of that which restricts free action of body or mind), causing or accompanied by difficulty, hardship, oppressive; oppressed, not having free action; strict, severe”), from Proto-Germanic *narwaz (“constricted, narrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ner- (“to turn, bend, twist, constrict”). Cognate with Scots naro, narow, narrow (“narrow”), North Frisian naar, noar, noor (“narrow”), Saterland Frisian noar (“bleak, dismal, meager, ghastly, unwell”), Saterland Frisian Naarwe (“scar”), West Frisian near (“narrow”), Dutch naar (“dismal, bleak, ill, sick”), Low German naar (“dismal, ghastly”), German Narbe (“scar”), Norwegian norve (“a clip, staple”), Icelandic njörva- (“narrow-”, in compounds).

Adjective

narrow (comparative narrower, superlative narrowest)

1. Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
2. Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
   • 1675, John Wilkins, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion

     The Jews were but a small nation, and confined to a narrow compass in the world.

3. (figuratively) Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.

4. Contracted; of limited scope; bigoted

5. Having a small margin or degree.
6. (dated) Limited as to means; straitened

   narrow circumstances

7. Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
   • a. 1719, George Smalridge, The Hopes of a Recompense from Men must not be our chief Aim in doing Good

     a very narrow […] and stinted charity

8. Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
9. (phonetics) Formed (as a vowel) by a close position of some part of the tongue in relation to the palate; or (according to Bell) by a tense condition of the pharynx; distinguished from wide.

Antonyms

• wide
• broad

Related terms

• narrowly
• narrowness

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

narrow (plural narrows)

1. (chiefly in the plural) A narrow passage, especially a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.
   • 1858', William Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age

     Near the island lay on one side the jaws of a dangerous narrow.

Etymology 2

From Middle English narwen (“to narrow”); see there for more details, but ultimately derived from the noun.

Verb

narrow (third-person singular simple present narrows, present participle narrowing, simple past and past participle narrowed)

1. (transitive) To reduce in width or extent; to contract.

2. (intransitive) To get narrower.

3. (of a person or eyes) To partially lower one's eyelids in a way usually taken to suggest a defensive, aggressive or penetrating look.

4. (knitting) To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.
5. (transitive, programming) To convert to a data type that cannot hold as many distinct values.

   Antonym: widen

Synonyms

• taper

Derived terms

• narrow down
• renarrow

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• scarse (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English scarce, skarce, scarse, scars, from Old Northern French scars, escars ("sparing, niggard, parsimonious, miserly, poor"; > French échars, Medieval Latin scarsus (“diminished, reduced”)), of uncertain origin. One theory is that it derives originally from a Late Latin *scarpsus, *excarpsus, a participle form of *excarpere (“take out”), from Latin ex- + carpere; yet the sense evolution is difficult to trace. Compare also Middle Dutch schaers (“sparing, niggard”), Middle Dutch schaers (“a pair of shears, plowshare”), scheeren (“to shear”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?sk??s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?sk??s/

Adjective

scarce (comparative scarcer, superlative scarcest)

1. Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.

   • You tell him silver is scarcer now in England, and therefore risen in value one fifth.
2. (archaic) Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of.

Synonyms

• (uncommon, rare): geason, infrequent, raresome; see also Thesaurus:rare

Derived terms

Related terms

• scarcity

Translations

Adverb

scarce (not comparable)

1. (now literary, archaic) Scarcely, only just.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, 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.

   • 1906, Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman:

     He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,

     But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand

     As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;

     And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

     (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)

   • 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.

   • 1969, John Cleese, Monty Python's Flying Circus:

     Well, it's scarce the replacement then, is it?

Anagrams

• Craces, arcsec

Middle English

Noun

scarce

1. Alternative form of sarse