scant
/skænt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.10 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
adj
Slightly diminished; just short of the amount described.
det
Very little, very few.
Example Sentences
- "a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment"
- "His sermon was scant, in all, a quarter of an hour."
- "Another major defect of the current literature dealing with the nomenclature of hybrid forms of English is the scant attention paid to the question of frequency."
- "[Montana Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all."
- "The mainstream media hones in on bad news stories where UK railways are concerned, yet gives scant attention to the many items of good news emerging from the network."
- "Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence."
Etymology
Adjective and determiner from Middle English scant, from Old Norse skamt, neuter of skammr (“short”), from Proto-Germanic *skammaz (“short”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱem- (“mutilated, hornless”). Verb from Middle English scanten, from the adjective. Noun and adverb from Middle English scant, from the adjective.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: scant, skamt, *skammaz, *(s)ḱem-, scanten
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /skænt/
- British English: /skænt/