different between scarce vs niggardly
scarce
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)
- 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.
- (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)
- (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?
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4:
Anagrams
- Craces, arcsec
Middle English
Noun
scarce
- Alternative form of sarse
scarce From the web:
- what scarce means
- what do scarce mean
- what does scarce mean
niggardly
English
Etymology
niggard +? -ly
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /?n???dli/
- (US) IPA(key): /?n???dli/
Adjective
niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)
- Withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.
- Synonyms: miserly, stingy; see also Thesaurus:stingy
- 1609, Joseph Hall, (paraphrasing Ambrose? in) "No Peace with Rome", in Josiah Pratt (editor), The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D. D., Vol. IX. Polemical Works, London, (1808), page 57:
- [W]here the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly.
- 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 47
- They were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.
- 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1998 edition), ?ISBN, p. 186:
- This manifests itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others.
Usage notes
- This term may cause offence, especially in the US, as it is easily confused with niggerly, an adverbial form of the racial slur nigger. The two words are etymologically unrelated.
Translations
Adverb
niggardly (comparative more niggardly, superlative most niggardly)
- (now rare) In a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.
- , New York 2001, p.105:
- because many families are compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little […].
- , New York 2001, p.105:
Translations
Further reading
- Controversies about the word "niggardly" on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
References
niggardly From the web:
- niggardly meaning
- what does niggardly mean urban dictionary
- what is niggardly
- what does niggardly mean in french
- what is niggardly in sentence
- what do niggardly
- what does niggardly spell
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