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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Smallness of number; fewness.
  2. n. Scarcity; dearth: a paucity of natural resources.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Smallness of number; fewness.
  2. n. Smallness of quantity; scantiness.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Fewness in number; a small number.
  2. n. Smallness in size or amount; meagerness.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Fewness; smallness of number; scarcity; rarity.
  2. n. Smallness of quantity; exiguity; insufficiency.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an insufficient quantity or number

Etymologies

  1. Middle English paucite, from Old French, from Latin paucitās, from paucus, few; see pau-1 in Indo-European roots.

Examples

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Comments

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  • lweber5@scf.edu Dictionary.com, A paucity of useful answers to the problem of traffic congestion at rush hour Nov 5, 2010

  • mn the paucity and heterogeneity of the available clinical research in some specific areas precluded this approach and favoured a narrative survey. Jan 13, 2010

  • vermontster I tell my students -- "Want in? Learn to drop 'a paucity of research in X.' You'll sound really impressive." (Dearth is last year - or last decade. Or something.) Jun 28, 2008

‘paucity’ has been looked up 3928 times, loved by 14 people, added to 123 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.