dearth
Pronunciation Noun

dearth

  1. A period or condition when food is rare and hence expensive; famine.
  2. (by extension) Scarcity; a lack or short supply.
    • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XXV:
      Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth / Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, / Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood / Changes and off he goes!) within a rood— / Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.
  3. (obsolete) Dearness; the quality of being rare or costly.
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