Paucity refers to "littleness" in numbers (as in "a paucity of facts") or quantity ("a paucity of common sense"). The word comes from paucus, Latin for "little."
If you had one of those Yugoslav names with a paucity of vowels, you might sprinkle in a few …—Calvin Trillin, Time, 22 May 2000For my part, I find increasingly that I miss the simplicity, the almost willful paucity, of the English way of doing things.—Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999This relative paucity of freeloaders and deadbeats means that rookie Americans, as a group, more than pay their way.—Jaclyn Fierman, Fortune, 9 Aug. 1993
a paucity of useful answers to the problem of traffic congestion at rush hour
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Despite the frequent paucity of BLM cartographic resources, apparently Jackson never got lost or worried about dropping the thread of a trail.—Melina Sempill Watts, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2025 But the Fort Pierce station doesn’t address a paucity of local news coverage in Palm Beach County, Rampell suggested. .—David Lyons, Sun Sentinel, 9 June 2025 While Ishiba floated the idea of creating an Asian NATO just before becoming prime minister, this looks remote given the paucity of potential partners in the region and the U.S. 's own broader questioning of its overseas security commitments under the second Trump administration.—Robert Ward, NPR, 27 May 2025 Hollywood cinema has ever been a medium of self-reflexivity, mining its own art and business for story material, so the latest depiction of above-the-line talent — oddly, there is a paucity of films about gaffers, best boys, or foley artists — is part of a venerable tradition.—Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 20 Apr. 2025 See All Example Sentences for paucity
Word History
Etymology
Middle English paucite, from Latin paucitat-, paucitas, from paucus little — more at few
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