paucity

From Middle English paucete, paucite, paucyte, partly from Middle French paucité and partly from its etymon, Latin paucitās (“a small number, fewness, scarcity”), from paucus (“few, little”).^[1][2] Related to few.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒs.ɪ.ti/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɔs.ɪ.ti/, [ˈpɔs.ɪ.ɾi]
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.sɪ.ti/, [ˈpɑ.sɪ.ɾi]

  • Audio (US):

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈpɔs.ɪ.ti/, [ˈpɔs.ɪ.ɾi]

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], archived from the original on 10 October 2009:

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

   • 2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 60:

     I have always argued that despite my opposition to rail privatisation, I should be grateful that John Major won the 1992 election on a platform to sell off the railways, as otherwise my column would have disappeared given the paucity of things to write about.

2. A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
   • 1650, Thomas Browne, “Of the Cameleon”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 133:

     It cannot be denied it [the chameleon] is (if not the moſt of any) a very abſtemious animall, and ſuch as by reaſon of its frigidity, paucity of bloud, and latitancy in the winter (about which time the obſervations are often made) will long ſubſist without a viſible ſuſtentation.

   • 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.

   • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 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.

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

• “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.