scarce
/ˈskɛɚs/adjective
scarce is spelled S-C-A-R-C-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.1 times per million words in written English, the 12,764th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, scarce means “Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in scarce?
| Letters | 6: S-C-A-R-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.1 times per million words; the 12,764th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is scarce?
Scarce appears 4.1 times per million words in written English, the 12,764th 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 scarce?
- UK /ˈskɛəs/
- US /ˈskɛɚs/
- Australia /skeːs/
Scarce 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-scarce.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with scarce?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as scarce (/ɛəɹs/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: arcsec.
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 scarce
- scarcer comparative
- scarcest superlative
- scace
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does scarce mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.
By the end of the 20th century elephants had become scarce even in Africa.
- 2
Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); used with of.
The project failed due to the scarce resources in the national market.
adverb
- 1
archaicScarcely, only just.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Scarce in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense rare, in low supply:
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 scarce come from?
From Middle English scars, scarse, 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 Middle Dutch schaers (“scarce”), Middle Dutch schaers (“a pair of shears, plowshare”), scheeren (“to shear”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).