Word of the Day

: August 22, 2024

dearth

noun DERTH

What It Means

Dearth refers to a lack or inadequate supply. It is usually followed by of.

// There is no dearth of opportunities for volunteers at the fair.

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dearth in Context

“Of course, it’s one thing to survey the marketplace and acknowledge the dearth of female voices in genres like history and biography. It’s another entirely to understand in practical terms how the absence of female perspectives affects the way history is told, to recognize the threads that go unexplored or are never thought of in the first place.” — Katie Gee Salisbury, LitHub.com, 13 Mar. 2024

Did You Know?

Dearth has, in one form or another, been used to refer to scarcity since at least the 13th century, when it often referred specifically to the plague of famine (as in “a time of dearth”), whether brought on by an insidious crop disease or by invaders. The word traces back to the Old English adjective dēore, meaning “dear” (dēore is also the ancestor of dear, which also once meant “scarce,” though that sense is now obsolete). That notion of dearness or importance endures in dearth, which implies the absence or scarcity of not just any old thing, but of something one wants or needs. A dearth of mauls, for example, would be the bane of a woodcutter’s existence.