- 1短缺、不夠；經濟學在台灣說「稀少性」（中國大陸較常說「稀缺」）
Scarcity is a situation in which there is not enough of something — water, houses, tickets, time, teachers. Economists use it as a big idea: most things people want are scarce, so we have to choose. In ordinary talk it is close to shortage, but a little more formal. You meet it in the news and in school essays more than in chat. It can be short-term (“a scarcity of rain this year”) or a standing fact (“land is scarce in the city”). Though actually, speakers stretch it to things you cannot really count, like “a scarcity of kindness.” On the surface the word is scarce plus -ity: the state of being scarce.
From the word’s history
From Middle English scarsite, from Old Northern French escarsete; scarce + -ity.
源自中古英文 scarsite；即 scarce 加上 -ity。
組成On the surface, scarce + -ity (the state of being scarce). Historically from Middle English scarsite, from Old Northern French escarsete.
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
scarcitynoun/ˈskɛɹsɪti/
- 1
The condition of something being scarce or deficient.
- Praise […] owes its value only to its scarcity.
- To understand the events of the next fifty years, then, one must understand environmental scarcity, cultural and racial clash, geographic destiny, and the transformation of war.
- 2
An inadequate amount of something; a shortage.
- a scarcity of grain
- The crucial and intersecting challenges of scarcities, both emerging and intensifying, will consume China’s custodians over the next decade.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。