Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SCARCE-NESS, or SCAR-CI-TY, n.

1. Smallness of quantity, or smallness in proportion to the wants or demands; deficiency; defect of plenty; penury; as, a scarcity of grain; a great scarcity of beauties; a scarcity of lovely women. – Dryden. Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity. – Rambler. A scarcity of snow would raise a mutiny at Naples. – Addison.
2. Rareness; infrequency. The value of an advantage is enhanced by its scarceness. – Collier. Root of scarcity, the mangold-wurzel, a variety of the Beta Cycla or white beet; G. mangold-wurzel, beet-root, corrupted into mangel-wurzel; Fr. racine de disette, root of want or scarcity. Ed. Encyc.