Dearth

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Dearth \Dearth\, n. [OE. derthe, fr. dere. See {Dear}.]
     Scarcity which renders dear; want; lack; specifically, lack
     of food on account of failure of crops; famine.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           There came a dearth over all the land of Egypt. --Acts


                                                    vii. 11.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           He with her press'd, she faint with dearth. --Shak.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination.
                                                    --Dryden.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  dearth
       n 1: an acute insufficiency [syn: {famine}, {shortage}]
       2: an insufficient quantity or number [syn: {paucity}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  47 Moby Thesaurus words for "dearth":
     absence, aridity, barrenness, birth control, contraception,
     default, defect, deficiency, dry womb, dryness, exiguity,
     exiguousness, family planning, famine, impotence, inadequacy,
     ineffectualness, infecundity, infertility, infrequency,
     insufficiency, lack, meagerness, miss, need, paucity,
     planned parenthood, poverty, privation, rareness, rarity,
     scant sufficiency, scantiness, scantness, scarceness, scarcity,
     shortage, sparseness, sparsity, sterileness, sterility,
     uncommonness, unfertileness, unfruitfulness, unproductiveness,
     want, withered loins
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Dearth
     a scarcity of provisions (1 Kings 17). There were frequent
     dearths in Palestine. In the days of Abram there was a "famine
     in the land" (Gen. 12:10), so also in the days of Jacob (47:4,
     13). We read also of dearths in the time of the judges (Ruth
     1:1), and of the kings (2 Sam. 21:1; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38;
     8:1).
     
       In New Testament times there was an extensive famine in
     Palestine (Acts 11:28) in the fourth year of the reign of the
     emperor Claudius (A.D. 44 and 45).