English Explanatory Dictionary

dearth

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.
  2. Scarcity; a lack or short supply.
  3. Dearness; the quality of being rare or costly.
verb
  1. To cause or produce a scarcity in something.

Pronunciation

/dɜːθ/ /dɝθ/ dûrth en-us-dearth.ogg en-au-dearth.ogg

Word forms

dearth dearths dearthing dearthed

Etymology

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”).

Synonyms

famine shortage lack paucity scarcity

Derived words

dearthful dearthy
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on D Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary