sparsity

[ spahr-si-tee ]

noun

1. the fact or condition of being thinly scattered or distributed and not thick or dense:

   The size of these rural counties and the sparsity of their populations make it more costly to administer social services.

2. the fact or quality of being small in amount or number; scantiness:

   Not only is there a sparsity of rainfall in extremely arid deserts, but high evaporation rates soon remove whatever moisture it provides.

Other Words From

• un·sparse·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of sparsity¹

First recorded in 1860–65; spars(e) ( def ) + -ity ( def )

Example Sentences

From early years of rock sparsity - pulling apart the remnants of Joy Division's post-punk gloom and David Bowie's Low era - they bloomed into late-80s indie-pop heavyweights - defined by Smith's melancholy.

From BBC

Officers told the meeting that although the county did receive some "sparsity funding" to recognise the costs of providing education in small schools across a vast rural area, the national funding formula did not reflect the challenges facing some schools.

From BBC

The GP-to-patient ratio already trails the national average by 18%, it added, with recruitment hampered by "confusion around funding, poor estates and a sparsity of applications".

From BBC

However, each hardware accelerator is typically designed to support one specific sparsity pattern, limiting its flexibility.

From Science Daily

They use a technique they call "hierarchical structured sparsity" to efficiently represent a wide variety of sparsity patterns that are composed of several simple sparsity patterns.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• dearth
• drought
• famine
• inadequacy
• insufficiency
• lack
• paucity
• shortage