dearth
/dɝθ/noun
dearth is spelled D-E-A-R-T-H. The wrong spelling people search most is dirth: about 730 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Dearth is a noun meaning “A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine”. The plural of dearth is dearths.
How many letters and syllables are in dearth?
| Letters | 6: D-E-A-R-T-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 31,974th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, dirth, about 730 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell dearth?
Dearth is spelled D-E-A-R-T-H. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for dearth in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is dearth?
Dearth appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 31,974th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dearth?
- UK /dɜːθ/
- US /dɝθ/
- /dɜːf/
Dearth has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dearth.ogg, En-au-dearth.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with dearth?
8 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as dearth from its last stressed vowel (/ɜɹθ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: thread, hatred.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of dearth
- dearths plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- dearthing participle, present
- dearthed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dearth mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.
- 2
Scarcity; a lack or short supply.
- 3
obsoleteDearness; the quality of being rare or costly.
verb
- 1
datedobsoleteTo cause or produce a scarcity in something.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dearth in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | disette , pénurie |
| German | Hungersnot , Mangel, Knappheit |
| Portuguese | fome , falta, escassez |
| Spanish | hambruna , escasez, cortedad, carestía |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dearth come from?
First attested at least as early as the late 1300s, and appearing in Tyndale’s Pentateuch (1530) as well as the Coverdale Bible (1535). From Middle English derth, derthe, derþe, probably from Old English *dīerþ, *dīerþu, from Proto-West Germanic *diuriþu, from Proto-Germanic *diuriþō (“costliness, preciousness, honour”); corresponding to dear + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with Old Saxon diuriða (“glory, honour; preciousness”), West Frisian djoerte (“love, dearness, value, worth”), Dutch duurte (“dearness; scarcity, dearth”), Icelandic dýrð (“honour, glory”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).