paucity

English

Etymology

From Middle French paucité, from Old French, from Latin paucitās (“a small number, fewness, scarcity”), from paucus (“few, little”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w-, *ph₁w- (“few, small”) (English few).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɑsɪti/, /ˈpɔsɪti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

paucity (countable and uncountable, plural paucities)

1. Fewness in number; too few.
   • 1915, Anna Katharine Green, The Golden Slipper, problem 7:

     But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.

   • 1963 January, “Beyond the Channel: France”, in Modern Railways, page 60:

     This paucity of trains helps to explain why electrification is not planned between Paris and Belfort.

   • 2006 July 13, Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman, “Uncle Sam Wants You”, in Time‎^[1]:

     Your tax refund might be late, owing to a paucity of number crunchers.

2. A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
   • 1898, Mark Twain, At the Appetite-Cure:

     Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food.

   • 1915, Gene Stratton-Porter, chapter 12, in Michael O'Halloran:

     Here is where the paucity of our language is made manifest.

   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 407]:

     Genteel America was handicapped by meagerness of soul, thinness of temper, paucity of talent.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[2], page 2:

     There are also texts that present more lengthy lists, of between ten and thirty examples, and in doing so include some less common terms. But, on the whole, there is at present a paucity of information about these terms.

Synonyms

• (fewness in number): See Thesaurus:fewness
• (smallness in size or amount): dearth, scantiness, scarcity; see also Thesaurus:lack

Related terms

English terms prefixed with pauci-

Translations

fewness in number; a small number

• Bulgarian: малобройност f (malobrojnost), оскъдност f (oskǎdnost)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 少量 (zh) (shǎoliàng)

• Czech: nedostatek (cs) m
• Dutch: gering aantal n
• Finnish: niukkuus (fi)
• French: paucité (fr) f
• German: Mangel (de) m
• Greek: ελαχιστότητα f (elachistótita), σπανιότητα (el) f (spaniótita)
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Irish: laghad m
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: کەمی (ckb) (kemî)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Latin: paucitās f
• Macedonian: недо́статок m (nedóstatok), не́достиг m (nédostig)
• Maori: ngōuruuru
• Polish: niedostatek (pl) m
• Portuguese: penúria (pt) f
• Russian: недоста́точность (ru) f (nedostátočnostʹ), нехва́тка (ru) f (nexvátka), малочи́сленность (ru) f (maločíslennostʹ) (fewness)
• Slovak: nedostatok
• Spanish: penuria (es) f, escasez (es) f, paucidad, poquedad (es)
• Swahili: uchache (sw) class u, uhaba (sw) class u
• Swedish: fåtalighet c, knapphet c

smallness in size or amount

• Dutch: geringheid
• Finnish: niukkuus (fi)
• German: Knappheit (de) f
• Greek: έλλειψη (el) f (élleipsi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: laghad m
• Latin: paucitās f
• Macedonian: о́скудност f (óskudnost)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: knapphet m or f

  Nynorsk: knappleik m

• Russian: ску́дность (ru) f (skúdnostʹ)
• Slovak: nedostatok m

Further reading

• “paucity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “paucity”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “paucity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.