Skip to content
HOW TO PRONOUNCE

dearth

/dɝθ/

Press play to hear how to pronounce dearth.

American Pronunciation Guide · 0:47
Watch on YouTube ↗

What does dearth mean?

noun

  1. A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.
  2. Scarcity; a lack or short supply.
More meanings (2)

noun

  1. (obsolete) Dearness; the quality of being rare or costly.

verb

  1. (dated, obsolete) To cause or produce a scarcity in something.

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/dɝθ/

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

The Smith pedigree has been traced a little more particularly than the Stevensons’, with a similar dearth of illustrious names.
Robert Louis StevensonRecords of a Family of EngineersProject Gutenberg ebook #280
Through dearth of reliable information about the antecedents in this case we were unable to make a card of causative factors.
William Healy; Mary Tenney HealyPathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic PsychologyProject Gutenberg ebook #449
More book examples (3)
And when it is any dearth, the knights be right poor, and then they sell both their horse and their harness.
John, Sir MandevilleThe Travels of Sir John MandevilleProject Gutenberg ebook #782
Man, at first a ravenous hunter after game, brought the flock into existence and turned shepherd to avoid a time of dearth.
Jean-Henri FabreMore Hunting WaspsTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de MattosProject Gutenberg ebook #3462
Two canine animals in a time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get food and live.
Charles DarwinOn the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for LifeProject Gutenberg ebook #1228