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Dearth   /dərθ/   Listen
Dearth

noun
1.
An acute insufficiency.  Synonyms: famine, shortage.
2.
An insufficient quantity or number.  Synonym: paucity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dearth" Quotes from Famous Books



... disruption of trade and transport; severe drought added to the nation's difficulties in 1998-2002. The majority of the population continues to suffer from insufficient food, clothing, housing, and medical care, and a dearth of jobs, problems exacerbated by political uncertainties and the general level of lawlessness. International efforts to rebuild Afghanistan were addressed at the Tokyo Donors Conference for Afghan Reconstruction ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... dread of free inquiry, this childish skittishness in both writers and public, this dearth of courage and even of curiosity, the influence of comstockery is undoubtedly to be detected. It constitutes a sinister and ever-present menace to all men of ideas; it affrights the publisher and paralyzes the author; no one on the outside can imagine its burden as a practical concern. I am, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... There was a boom in soldier poets. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Nichols, W.J. Turner had recently made their debuts. Here was a soldier novelist, the first and in his teens. As always in war-time there was a demand for books and there was that summer a dearth of novels. A spirit of challenge and criticism was in the air. The war after three years was still "bogged down" and public opinion attributed allied failings in the field to mismanagement in high places. The rebelliousness ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... then sat down again. He was remarkably good-looking with his sparkling blue eyes and mischievous expression, and Felicity glanced at him with approval. He would do very well—for the evening. He was quite worth powder—and shot. At least, he was, to her, a perfect stranger, and there was a great dearth of spring novelties at the ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... flower of wondrous worth, A rare, sweet flower of heaven that ne'er should die, Altho' the vase in which it grew should lie Most rudely rent amid the darkling dearth. ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... I cannot pray, So to lessen my distress And to win lightheartedness I'll walk along this Sandy Way And, the cares that on me press To soothe, the old romance I'll gloss "I was in Coimbra city" Since Coimbra without pity Brings us to such dearth and loss. 10 I was in Coimbra city That is built so gracefully, In the plains of the Mondego Straw nor barley could I see. Thereupon, ah me! I reckoned 'Twas a trap set artfully For the horses of the Court And ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... average journalist working under the present more favorable circumstances. Men of culture, honest purpose, and fine feeling were slow to enrol themselves members of a despised and proscribed fraternity; and in the dearth of educated gentlemen ready to accept literary employment, the task of writing for the public papers too frequently devolved upon very unscrupulous persons, who rendered their calling as odious as themselves. A shackled and persecuted press is always ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... from a dearth of recreational facilities of their own, especially of a SOCIAL type. One of the most promising influences to supply this deficiency is the CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, which makes provision for assembly halls, social gatherings, and recreation grounds for young and old alike. An illustration of this ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... from the pen of Miss Barrett, would be a remarkable publication at any time; but, in the present dearth of poetical genius, their appearance is doubly welcome; their claims on our consideration are doubly strong; and we cannot allow ourselves to pass them over without some detailed notice of their contents. In spite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... Episcopi, higher towards Hindon, water riseth and makes a streame before a dearth of corne, that is to say, without raine; and is commonly look't upon by the neighbourhood as a certain presage of a dearth; as, for example, the ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... places, in order to collect the bands of the Shoshonees and the Flatheads, for their journey to the Missouri. The weather was warm and sultry, but the only inconvenience which we apprehend is a dearth of food, of which we had to-day an abundance, having procured a deer, a goose, one duck and a prairie fowl. On reaching Tower creek we left the former track of captain Clarke, and began to explore the new route, which is our last hope of getting out of the mountains. For four ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... action is a moral dearth, And to advance the world is little worth: Let us think much, say little, and much do, If to ourselves and God we will be true; And ask within, What have I done of that I have to do? Is conscience silent—say, Oh! let my deeds be many and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... epoch of discovery. From then on the finding of asteroids became a commonplace. Latterly, with the aid of photography, the list has been extended to above four hundred, and as yet there seems no dearth in the supply, though doubtless all the larger members have been revealed. Even these are but a few hundreds of miles in diameter, while the smaller ones are too tiny for measurement. The combined bulk of these ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Great dearth prevailed this year, so that sixpence of the old money was given for a cake of bread in Connaught, or ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... always wanted to know how and where he spent his evenings. He would exchange that humdrum thraldom in due course for a home of his own, dominated by a chronic scarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a dearth of most of the things that made life attractive or comfortable. Jocantha felt extremely sorry for him. She wondered if he had seen the "Yellow Peacock"; the odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that he had not. The girl had finished her tea and would ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... The spiritual dearth was not indeed so great as that previously described. The zeal of bishops and priests, and teachers from regular orders, had been so active in its labors, that, aided by the liberty which the institutions of the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... quite true, enough biographies of such in existence to read the world to sleep by for ages. It can hardly keep awake at all, except over lives of the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany nipped—as Nature is wont to nip it—in the promising bud of its tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the world never knows ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... for physic use. As, where the lightning runs along the ground, No husbandry can heal the blasting wound; Nor bladed grass, nor bearded corn succeeds, But scales of scurf and putrefaction breeds: Such wars, such waste, such fiery tracks of dearth Their zeal has left, and such a teemless earth, But, as the poisons of the deadliest kind Are to their own unhappy coasts confined; 230 As only Indian shades of sight deprive, And magic plants will but in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... think why this should be, This bitter plaint of sudden dearth; To write a play would seem to me Almost the easiest thing on earth. Sometimes I feel that even I Could do it if I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various

... under the Repatriation Commission which controlled the distribution of returning prisoners and concentrated population to their homes; for the most part I was distributing stock and grain, and presently manoeuvring a sort of ploughing flying column that the dearth of horses and oxen made necessary, work that was certainly as hard as if far less exciting than war. That particular work of replanting the desolated country with human beings took hold of my imagination, and for a time at least seemed quite ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... square, waiting till my father brought the key of the wooden house In Gilles street, in spite of the dignity of my 14 years just attained, I had a good cry. There had been such a drought that they had a dearth, almost a famine. People like ourselves with 80 acre land orders were frightened to attempt cultivation in an unknown climate, with seed wheat at 25/ a bushel or more, and stuck to the town. We lived a month in Gilles street, then we bought a large marquee, and pitched it on Brownhill ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... life in keeping himself before the public, and getting talked about as a celebrity. He even arranged (to the disgust and envy of his rivals) to die during a week when no event of importance was occupying public attention. In consequence, reporters, being short of “copy,” owing to a dearth of murders and “first nights,” seized on this demise and made ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... willingness to be convinced, as most men who have suffered and reflected, I have not seen a single argument which did not appear to me fully answered by the above objection alone (about the "honour"); setting aside the innumerable convincing ones urged by reasoners on the other side: for as to any dearth of statesmen in a country like this, it never existed, nor ever can, till education and public spirit have entirely left it. There have been the same complaints at every change in the history of administrations; and the crop has ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... foothold beneath their shade. They withheld light, and the mat of myriads of slender leaves killed off every sprouting thing. This was of the utmost value to us, providing shade, clear passage to every breeze, and an absolute dearth of flies and mosquitoes. We found that the clumps needed clearing of old stems, and for two days we indulged in the strangest of weedings. The dead stems were as hard as stone outside, but the ax bit through easily, and they were so light that we could easily ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... watch to the north of Rockland lay waste and almost inviolate through much of its domain. The catamount still glared from the branches of its old hemlocks on the lesser beasts that strayed beneath him. It was not long since a wolf had wandered down, famished in the winter's dearth, and left a few bones and some tufts of wool of what had been a lamb in the morning. Nay, there were broad-footed tracks in the snow only two years previously, which could not be mistaken;—the black bear alone could have set that plantigrade seal, and little children must ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... equable moderation of the Golden Age is replaced by exaggeration, and like all who cultivate artificial brilliancy, he cannot maintain his ambitious level of poetical and pretentious ornament. The last year referred to in the book is 30 A.D. The dearth of other material gives him additional value. As a historian he takes a low rank; as an abridger he is better, but best of all as a rhetorical anecdotist and painter of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... layer of grease which the animal's spare diet would not lead us to suspect. True, it has nothing to do, at every hour of the day and night, but gnaw. The quantity of wood that passes into its stomach makes up for the dearth of nourishing elements. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... An Answer to Mr. Pope's Preface to Shakspeare, by a Strolling Player, 1729, respecting the destruction of the poet's MSS. papers, been ever verified? If that account is authentic, it will explain the singular dearth of all autograph remains of one who must have written so much. As the pamphlet is not common, I transcribe ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various

... boy who grimaced by the hearth, To solemnize his shining face of mirth; Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... time he made use of his "toe-holts" he told himself that that inconvenience would soon be eliminated. He meant to have a windmill as soon as he could afford it, for whatever else the country might lack there was no dearth of wind for ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... The dearth of great libraries, books and periodicals is one reason why the country boy makes the most of good books and articles, often reading them over and over again, while the city youth, in the midst of newspapers and libraries, sees so many books that in most instances he cares very little ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... army reorganization, changes were made without much regard to personal merit, the dearth of efficient officers being such that even the most indifferent had some value. About the first of June, 1791, Buonaparte was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, with a salary of thirteen hundred ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... leaves Valence—the home of the White Hermitage—for Die at 2.30 P.M., and professes to reach its destination in six hours; but sad experience showed that it could be unfaithful to the extent of an hour and a half. So long as the daylight lasted, there was no dearth of objects of interest; but when darkness came on, the monotonous roll of the heavy diligence became aggravating in the extreme. The village of Beaumont, once the residence of an important branch of the great Beaumont ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... debt, as many are, with no reading except, one or two newspapers? If she had a library of books, it would make but little difference, for she has no time to read them. All through the Western country there is an absolute dearth of women's "help." "A girl" can hardly be obtained for love or money. Girls in towns or cities will not go into the country, and country girls are too independent. If they have a father's house, they will not leave it for any length of time, as actual want is not known here in the ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... notes from the piano, or some one voice trilling out a popular song or a pretty ballad. Everything went flourishingly; to be sure, there were more ladies than gentlemen, which required much watching and managing on Bea's part, that no lady should suffer a dearth of masculine attention. Once, Ralph was missing from the room for some little time, which worried her greatly, but when he came back, she noticed that he nodded and smiled to Kittie, which was unintelligible to her, but was readily understood by her sister, to mean that everything was right. ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... that lack of fuel or damage to the machinery had caused the diminution. Again, one of these ubiquitous banks buys a large amount of corn or sugar, but instead of having it conveyed to the districts suffering from a dearth of that commodity, deposits it in a safe place and waits. In the meantime prices go up until they reach the prohibition level. Then the bank sells its stores in small quantities. The people suffer, murmur, and blame the Government. Nor is it ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... living and breathing before us in a poem. No wonder, then, that, in the present dearth of poetry in France, this epic or idyl, call it as you will, was received with acclamations. M. Rene Taillandier has consecrated to it one of his most masterly articles in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Lamartine has devoted to it a whole entretien in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... authority, was Dennis O'Grady, the Roman Catholic Parish Clerk, who, with a semi-clerical bearing, undertook to direct the religious devotions which are usual on such occasions. In consequence of the dearth of schools and teachers that then existed in our unfortunate country, it frequently happened, that persons were, from necessity, engaged in aiding the performance of religious duties, who were possessed ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... the Moniteur published the following note: "The emperor has left to-day to inspect the Grand Army united at the Vistula." In France, in all parts of the Empire, the lassitude was extreme and the misery increasing, there was no commerce, with dearth pronounced in twenty provinces, sedition of the hungry had broken out in Normandy, the gendarmes pursuing the "refractories" everywhere, and blood was shed in ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... who makes a profit has entered into a conspiracy with famine. But the whole nation has not even this labor, by means of which property starves it. And why? Because the workers are forced by the insufficiency of their wages to monopolize labor; and because, before being destroyed by dearth, they destroy each other by competition. Let us pursue ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... Chattanooga, Grant had telegraphed to Burnside and had received from him a detailed statement of the numbers and positions of his troops. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 680, 681.] Burnside also laid before him the dearth of supplies and short stock of ammunition, with the great need of clothing. Unless the railroad to Chattanooga could be fully reopened, he suggested making a depot at McMinnville, where was the end of one of the branches ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... we had plenty of sunshine, with frequent showers; so that the hot months brought no dearth of wild flowers, as in most years. The abundance of flowers resulted in a wonderful increase of humble bees. I have never known them so plentiful before; in and about the plantation adjoining my house I found, during the season, no fewer than ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... urged, has a right to spell as he chooses, and to express his ideas, when he has any, as best he can; while, when he suffers from a dearth of those rare articles, he has still more reason to rejoice in liberty of choice in respect to the language he selects to cover his poverty of thought. Hence there are doubtless good and sufficient reasons ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... Confederate Armies and on the newspapers of that period, especially the Nashville Union. The author is conscious of his failure adequately to present the "Confederate side of many controverted points," because of "a most regrettable dearth of material ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... something, in the dearth of fame, Though link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush—for Greece ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... shone lovely; wood smoke mounted, thin and silvery, from a cottage or two, that were cooking, and embroidered the air, not fouled it. The little windows had diamond panes, as in the Middle Ages, and every cottage door was open, suggesting hospitality and dearth of thieves. There was also that old essential, a village green—a broad strip of sacred turf, that was everybody's by custom, though in strict law Vizard's. Here a village cow and a donkey went about grazing the edges, for the turf in general was smooth as a lawn. By the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... butter-cups—these are the characteristics of the country through which we were passing. It is in vain however you look for neat villas or consequential farm houses: and as rarely do you see groups of villagers reposing, or in action. A dearth of population gives to French landscape a melancholy and solitary cast of character. It is in cities that you must look for human beings—and for cities the French seem to ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... deeper than the dearth of sound Broods over thee: a living silence breathes Perpetual incense from thy dim abyss. The morning-stars that sang above the bower Of Eden, passing over thee, are dumb With trembling bright amazement; and the Dawn Steals through the glimmering ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke

... invention to contend against—there was chance enough beyond all question. Who could say whether the very key in her hand might not be the lost duplicate of one of the keys on the admiral's bunch? In the dearth of all other means of finding the way to her end, the risk was worth running. A flash of the old spirit sparkled in her weary eyes as she ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... son. All over the country stood spacious stone storehouses, divided between the Sun and the Inca, in which were laid up maize, coca, woollen and cotton stuffs, gold, silver, and copper, and beside these were yet others designed to supply the wants of the people in times of dearth. Thus in Peru, though no man who was not an Inca could become rich, all had enough ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... connection between Les Fortunes and Les Miserables; between the chaste style of HAUTGOUT and the extravaganzas of HUGO; whose works, in former days, were not considered fit reading for an Anglo-Saxon public, whose latest and most corrupt fiction owes its success (let us hope) rather to the dearth of new literature than to the vitiated taste of the Southern people. How great the difference between the two authors is, can best be appreciated by comparing the description of the gamin in Marius, with the following ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... extortions and multiplying numbers of the lawyers and sheriffs, the oppressions of creditors, the enormous, grinding taxes, the last sheriff's sale, and who would be sold out next, the last batch of debtors taken to jail, and who would go next, the utter dearth of money of any sort, the impossibility of getting work, the gloomy and hopeless prospect for the coming winter, and in general the wretched failure of the triumph and independence of the colonies to bring about the public and private prosperity ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... that dazzling Sunday sky, the scene was like that of a fair-field with all the gluttony of a merrymaking community, a display of the delight which they felt in living, despite the multiplicity of their abominable ailments and the dearth of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... heretofore unknown. Without doubt, the most complex in its elements, the most serious in its consequences, was the Ruthenian issue. It was a case of providing for the spiritual wants of over a quarter of a million souls. The dearth of priests, the difference of rite, the difficulty of language, and the great number of Ruthenians, created for the Church an almost insurmountable barrier which nothing short of a miracle could otherthrow [Transcriber's note: overthrow?]. This sudden and large influx of Catholics belonging ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... such a Directory or model as would guide them in "the substance and right ordering of all the parts of divine worship," as well as guide the readers and others not fully admitted to the ministry of the Word, through whose special aid alone they were able, in a time of so great dearth of qualified ministers, to supply in part the spiritual destitution of their countrymen. Nor in granting such an amount of liberty, at least to their ordained ministers, did they follow a course which was, as has been so confidently asserted, altogether novel, but rather, ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... sufficed for the reception of its destined tenants. In the order of Franciscans alone, 120,430 monks are said to have perished. This plague had been preceded by tremendous earthquakes, which laid in ruins towns, castles, and villages. Dearth and famine, clouds of locusts, and even an innocent comet, had been long before regarded as fore-runners of the pestilence; and when it came it was viewed as an unequivocal sign of the wrath of God. At the outset, the Jews became, as usual, objects of umbrage, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... pole. She is my compass and always shows me where heaven is. She should, of course, be dressed in black, because she's in mourning; but we're so poor.... Do you know why we never had money? Because God was angry with us for our sins. 'The righteous suffer no dearth.' ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... justify his noble instincts against such critics. His was indeed a happy fate: the only fault ever advanced by friend or foe against his public life, was an excess of generosity towards his vanquished enemies!' His sense of the comic is amusingly evidenced by the story of his ruse during a dearth in the same siege. Tradition reports, that only one animal, a hog, was left alive in the town, and that more than half starved. In the afternoon, Blake, feeling that in their depression a laugh would do the defenders as much good as a dinner, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... soughtest I am," Said mildly, "Author of all this thou seest Above, or round about thee, or beneath. This Paradise I give thee, count it thine To till and keep, and of the fruit to eat: Of every tree that in the garden grows Eat freely with glad heart; fear here no dearth: But of the tree whose operation brings Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith, Amid the garden by the tree of life, Remember what I warn thee, shun to ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... and make the still cold days lively and cheerful by their merry voices, are, in animated nature, what flowers would be in inanimate nature, if they were found blooming under the snow. Nature does not permit, at any season, an entire dearth of those sources of enjoyment that spring from observation of the external world; and as there are evergreen mosses and ferns that supply in winter the places of the absent flowers, in like manner there are chattering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... him in King James's golden days. This sudden access of anarchy was made more terrible by a famine in the country, where not very long before it had been reported that there was fish and flesh for every man. "A great dearth of victualls, pairtly because the labourers of the ground might not sow nor win the corn through the tumults and cumbers of the country," spread everywhere, and the state of the kingdom called the conflicting ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... as Schopenhauer, who, of course, is greatly quoted, is cast Lombroso and Ferrerro's work, "Woman as a Criminal and a Prostitute." We know no scientific work of equal size—it contains 590 pages—with such a dearth of valid evidence on the theme therein treated. The statistical matter, from which the bold conclusions are drawn, is mostly meager. Often a dozen instances suffice the joint authors to draw the weightiest deductions. The matter that may be considered the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... a sudden dearth, or lingring famine which may ensue and justly follow the free and undoubted liberty of a riotous and luxurious time, yt is by us thought necessary that no man should in hugger mugger eate or drincke more than is publickly seene and allowed by the face of the body civill ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... tendency of farmers and their wives to age so rapidly, and so early to fall into the ranks of "fogyism," is due far more to lack of variety and recreation and to dearth of intellectual stimulus than to hard labor, severe as this often is. Age is more than the flight of the years, the stoop of the form, or the hardening of the arteries; it is also the atrophy of the intellect and the fading away of the emotions resulting from disuse. The farmer needs ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... dearth of work of high and permanent value, one or two Southern authors may be mentioned whose writings have at least done something to illustrate the life and scenery of their section. When in 1833 the Baltimore Saturday Visitor offered a prize of ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... more I listen the sighs, The mourning and the dearth, The deeper my heart cries Over this ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett

... sun, which heats but doth not melt. Dearth under water, bread under snow. Young and old must go warm at Martlemas. When the cock drinks in summer, it will rain a little after. As Mars hasteneth all the humours feel it. In August, neither ask for olives, chesnuts, nor acorns. January ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various

... tramp half-way across the township of Oro. Near the fire, balanced uneasily on the woodbox and whittling a stick, sat Callum; for Callum could never sit down quietly, even at home. Callum Fiach, or Wild Malcolm, they called him in this land of many MacDonalds, where the dearth of names necessitated a descriptive title. Unfortunately, Callum's especial cognomen was quite appropriate and the cause of much anxiety to his gentle mother. But Scotty thought it was fine; he intended to be just like Callum when he grew up. He would stand up straight ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... lay dying in Algiers— There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears; But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away, And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say. The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's hand, And he said: "I never more shall see my own, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... me! The dearth and misery fall on our heads as much as on yours. My own wife and son died ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... is likely to fall chiefly into the hands of men who are occupied almost solely with the cares and business of this life, this slight reference is made to the monuments of the dead in order that, should the reader of this book find, in the present dearth of honesty, of faithfulness, of disinterested valour and of loyalty, an aching want in his spirit for such high qualities, let him hence be taught where to go—let him learn that, though they are rarely found in the busy haunts of men, they are still preserved and have their home around ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... torture and of luxury. There are fireplaces nowhere but in the kitchen, where a couple of sentry-boxes are inserted on either side of the great hooded chimney-piece, into which people might creep and take their turn at being toasted and smoked. One may doubt whether this dearth of the hearthstone could have raged on such a scale, but it's a happy stroke in the representation of an Italian dwelling of any period. It shows how the graceful fiction that Italy is all "meridional" flourished for some time before being refuted by grumbling tourists. And yet amid this cold ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... use of books were greater than they are to-day, when the obstacles were more real between readers and the right books to read, when it was practically so troublesome to find out that which it is of vital importance to know; and that not by the dearth, but by the plethora of printed matter. For it comes to nearly the same thing whether we are actually debarred by physical impossibility, from getting the right book into our hand, or whether we are choked off from the right book by the obtrusive crowd of the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... probably women of the Provinces, and took their neutral tint from the foggy land they inhabit, which is neither a republic nor a monarchy, but merely a languid expectation of something undefined. My comrade was disposed to resent the dearth of beauty, not only on this vessel but throughout the Provinces generally,—a resentment that could be shown to be unjust, for this was evidently not the season for beauty in these lands, and it was probably a bad year for it. Nor should an American of the United States be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... be regretted that no one of Mason's friends has thought fit to pay the same tribute of respect to his memory, which he had himself paid to that of his two poetical friends, Gray and Whitehead. In this dearth of authentic biography, we must be contented with such information concerning him, as either his own writings, or the incidental mention made of him by ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... of the loss of the Psyche, another matter was brought to the fore which was destined to exercise a very important influence upon my fortunes. This matter had reference to the dearth of shallow-draught vessels in the slave squadron vessels capable of following the slavers in over the bars of the African rivers and fighting them upon equal terms. At the moment in question we had not a ship in the squadron drawing less than fourteen feet of water; consequently, when ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here, and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish dollars,—how welcome must their pleasant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... The curiosity of the landlady was excited in her turn. By the time of the morning it could be no other but me. It was very strange! They compared notes respecting my appearance and dress. No two things could be more dissimilar. The Jew Christian, upon any dearth of subjects of intelligence, repeatedly furnished ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... sweeter far in grief or mirth Have songs as glad and sad of birth Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth In joy of life: But never song took fire from earth More strong ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... house, from being destroyed by our enemies for ever, and to take care of it as thine own possession: but if this people be found to have sinned, and be thereupon afflicted by thee with any plague, because of their sin, as with dearth or pestilence, or any other affliction which thou usest to inflict on those that transgress any of thy holy laws, and if they fly all of them to this temple, beseeching thee, and begging of time to deliver them, then do thou hear their prayers, as ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... Scottish story with which I will trouble you happened in or shortly after the year 1800, and the whole circumstances are well known to me. The dearth of the years in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of this century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to the poor. A solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, subsisted chiefly by rearing chickens, an operation requiring so much care and attention that ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... the man limited to farm hands and tavern idlers, for dearth of new topics in the little community made him a subject of converse to the two girls during the hours of spinet practice, embroidery, and sewing, which were their daily occupations between breakfast and dinner, and, even extended into the afternoon, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... feel I am not robbed. 'Il y a des miracles, et j'en ai vu'. One's life seems more perfect when one has seen what nature can do. The fellow was stupendous! I conceive him present. Who'll fire a house for me? Is it my deficiency of attraction, or a total dearth of gallant snobs?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... things of heaven and them that walk the earth; Our city ... thou canst see, for all thy dearth Of outward eyes, what clouds are over her. In which, O gracious Lord, no minister Of help, no champion, can we find at all Save thee. For Phoebus—thou hast heard withal His message—to our envoy hath decreed One only way of help in this great need: To find and smite with death or ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth of imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Marsham, quot urbes, tot regna. The like was for many ages after observable in Greece, as well as in Latham, Samnium, and Hetruria. A powerful enemy made Egypt unite under one head: and the necessities of the people in a time of dearth served to complete that system. The Israelites too, when settled in Canaan, formed a large kingdom. Excepting these two nations we know of none of any considerable extent, that were thus united. The [908]Syrians and the Philistim were in separate ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... who groan over the distressing problem of depopulation, lend an ear to the lesson of the Copris, "which trebles its customary batch of offspring in times of abundance, and in times of dearth imitates the artisan of the city who has only just enough to live on, or the bourgeois, whose numerous wants are more and more costly to satisfy, limiting the number of its offspring lest they should go in want, often reducing the number ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... and doomed by my birth To pain and affliction, to darkness and dearth, On Thee let my spirit rely— Like some rude dial, that, fixt on earth, Still looks for its ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... New Mexico is recorded by Muller (509. 60). Ages ago there dwelt on the green plains a beautiful woman, who refused all wooers, though they brought many precious gifts. It came to pass that the land was sore distressed by dearth and famine, and when the people appealed to the woman she gave them maize in plenty. One day, she lay asleep naked; a rain-drop falling upon her breast, she conceived and bore a son, from whom are descended the people who built the "Casas Grandes." Dr. Fewkes cites ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... have a bad habit of jumping at conclusions. And in our great dearth of occupation here, I think it might be all the better for you to take a little interest in your neighbours. So I've a great mind to indulge you with an important idea, suggestion, discovery. Harkee, friend!"—and he put on an air ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... day On which propitious Heaven sent to Earth, Disguised in thy fair form, in mortal birth, The Star of Love, whose pure celestial ray Glides through the spirit's gloom and lights the way To bliss! I hail thy coming 'midst the dearth Of the soul's aspirations, when the worth Of hearts like thine had ceased ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)

... which I arrived after sifting my impressions. But never did my incapacity and dearth of knowledge appear to me in a less complimentary light than at this time. I vowed again and again to give myself up unreservedly to study, and first of all to choose some special branch that would prevent my efforts ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... shall men deny the flower Because its roots are in the earth, And crave with tears from God the dower They have, and have despised as dearth, And scorn as low their human lot, With frantic pride, too blind to see That standing on the head makes not Either for ease or dignity! But fools shall feel like fools to find (Too late inform'd) that angels' ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... already in operation but just a little too high. Here it is seen at once that power means fertility and consequent wealth, while the lack of it—if the climate be really dry, as in the Pacific States of America—means loss and dearth. But the presence of a source of power which can easily be shifted about from place to place on the farm for the purpose of watering the ground must very soon suggest the applicability of the same mechanical energy to the digging or ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... much greater. In Bradford, a prosperous English town which pays particular attention to its mothers and children, the infant mortality in 1917 was 132 per 1,000 and the birth-rate 13.2. In Connaught, where there are no maternity centres or other aids to survival, but on the contrary a great dearth of the means of well-being, the infant mortality was only 50, whilst the birth-rate was actually 45! [28] So untrue is it to say that a high death-rate is ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... a sight to the girls after a long dearth of events. Many things indeed upon which they scarce cast an eye when they came, they were now capable of regarding with a little feeble interest. Nor, although ignorant of everything agricultural, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... and children, were busy on the farms ploughing, harrowing and putting in the seed. Though the men were away there was no dearth of labour on the farms and everything was going on as it should. The silly-looking, heavily-built, three-wheeled carts, empty or loaded with manure, bumped along behind the broad-backed Flemish horses, guided solely by a frail ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... thou cease not from the exercise of prayer, nor suffer thy other common duties to be in anywise neglected; rather do thy task more readily, as though thou hadst gained more strength and knowledge; and do not altogether neglect thyself because of the dearth and anxiety of ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... and black lace, another of rose colour, and a third of apple-green. There were veils enough to stock a store, ties, collars, ribbons, small handkerchiefs and showy stockings in profusion, with a corresponding dearth of strong sensible clothing. The trousseau of Pauline was essentially French in its airiness; its cheap splendours attested to one side of her peculiar character and the sturdier and more sensible attributes of the belle Canadienne were for the time obliterated. The blanket coat ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... all I know about it, And, Gracious knows, their luggage had no end. And everybody thought they did intend To find th' remotest corner of the earth, Wherever that was. I can't comprehend Who in the dickens gave such stories birth, Still of frivolities like these there is no dearth. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... is a great dearth of farmhouses in these rich lands. The peasants are herded in squalid villages, the mud huts jammed close together, and the whole place overrun with goats, donkeys, pigs, chickens and pigeons. The houses are the crudest huts, with ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... took the baby away from the oldest child, who cried, and went into a corner to pout, regarding his mother with the same impudent air which Zilah had perceived in the curl of Jacquemin's lips when the reporter complained of the dearth ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... we have just read a melancholy account of the famine in the northern provinces; these years of dearth are truly unfortunate. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... welcome enough here, child; especially after the dearth of them. Ring the bell; let's have dinner. Pull down the shades and" (Truedale gave a wide gesture) "put the live stock out! An early meal, a long evening—what better could we add than a couple of ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... good will ended there. He refused to bring into servitude those Elamite subjects who had taken refuge with their families on Assyrian territory to escape the scourge, although the rights of nations authorised him so to do, but having nourished them as long as the dearth lasted, he then sent them back to their fellow-citizens. Urtaku of Elam had thenceforward maintained a kind of sullen neutrality, entering only into secret conspiracies against the Babylonian prefects on the Tigris. The Aramaeans in the valleys of the Ulai, indeed, were restless, and several ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... lacked nothing all this winter. Whilst preparing these extracts from my journal for the press, I remember to have heard the following remarks made with reference to the time about which I am just now writing, I mean the season of dearth during the winter of 1846-7: "I wonder how it is now with the orphans? If Mr. Mueller is now able, to provide for them as he has, we will say nothing." When I heard such like remarks I said nothing except this: "We lack nothing;" or, "God helps us." Should this fall into the ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... anonymous contemporary and by Baeda himself, throws great light on the religious and intellectual condition of the North at the time of its supremacy. But with the fall of Northumbria we pass into a period of historical dearth. A few incidents of Mercian history are preserved among the meagre annals of Wessex in the English Chronicle: but for the most part we are thrown upon later writers, especially Henry of Huntingdon and William ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... was, Tressady no sooner dared to give a sensuous thought to her beauty than his own passion smote him back—bade him beware lest he should be no longer fit to speak and talk with her, actually or spiritually. For in this hopeless dearth of all the ordinary rewards and encouragements of love he had begun to cultivate a sort of second, or spiritual, life, in which she reigned. Whenever he was alone he walked with her, consulted her, watched her dear eyes, and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... reports, provoking the people to tax grain and flour, stigmatising the corn-dealers as monopolists—the perfidious charge of monopoly being a sure sentence of death. The fear of being accused of starving the people checked every speculation of business, and tended much more than actual want to the dearth of the markets. Nothing is so scarce as a commodity which is concealed. The corn-stores were crimes in the eyes of consumers of bread. The Maire of Etampes, Simoneau, an honest man, and an intrepid magistrate, was one victim sacrificed to the people's suspicions. Etampes was one of the great markets ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... for the biographer that this earliest part of Mr Arnold's life is so fertile in poetry, for otherwise, in the dearth of information, it would be a terribly barren subject. The thirty years of life yield us hardly twenty pages of letters, of which the first, with its already cited sketch of Laleham, is perhaps the most interesting. At the Trafalgar ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... beginning of the feast, had not quite liked to see Grace present. He wished he had not asked such people as Bawtree and the hollow-turner. He had done it, in dearth of other friends, that the room might not appear empty. In his mind's eye, before the event, they had been the mere background or padding of the scene, but somehow in reality they were ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... centre of my sinful earth— My sinful earth these rebel powers array— Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... and city Let gracious incense rise; The Lord of life and pity Hath heard His creatures' cries: And where in fierce oppression Stalk'd fever, fear, and dearth, He pours a triple blessing To fill ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... United States, printed in 1840. In a lower room of a large house, once a convent, but now occupied by two or three priests, there were perhaps four or five hundred books written in Spanish and Latin on church matters. One reason for the dearth of books is the difficulty of protecting them from the ravages of the ants. We found to our horror that our books were devoured by them. And then the times were troublous and things were out of joint. In the large seminary at Molo, where hundreds of girls ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... experienced men is never supplied. Most business and industrial organizations find their growth impeded by the dearth of such men. To employ men trained by competitors or by inferior organizations is expensive and unsatisfactory. A man trained till he has become valuable to his "parent'' organization is not likely to be equally valuable to other organizations ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... it came to pass that there began to be a great dearth upon the land, and the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast because of the dearth, for there was no rain upon the face of ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... rendered by "distressed and scattered." The first means "skinned, harried"; the second means "flung down, prostrate." The people were like a flock of sheep after the wolves are through with them. There was dearth of true leaders. So Jesus took the material he had and organized the apostolate—for what? The Church grew out of the social feeling of Jesus for the ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... when the well also disappeared and a dearth of water set in, that all Israel might know that only owing to the merits of the pious prophetess had they been spared a lack of water during the forty years of the march. [602] While Moses and Aaron were now plunged in deep grief for their sister's death, a mob of the people collected ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... there be, the fools have the advantage: first, in that their happiness costs them least, that is to say, only some small persuasion; next, that they enjoy it in common. And the possession of no good can be delightful without a companion. For who does not know what a dearth there is of wise men, if yet any one be to be found? And though the Greeks for these so many ages have accounted upon seven only, yet so help me Hercules, do but examine them narrowly, and I'll be hanged if you find one half-witted fellow, nay or so much as one-quarter of a ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... picture which Ctesias gave of the character and conduct of his last Assyrian king deserves to be regarded as authentic history, and to be attached to this monarch, we must confess to an almost equal dearth of classical notices of his life and actions. Scarcely anything has come down to us from his time but a few legends on bricks, from which it appears that he was the builder of the south-east edifice at Nimrud, a construction presenting some remarkable but no very ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... the course they take; The modest speaker is asham'd and grieved To engross a moment's notice; and yet begs. Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, However trivial all that he conceives. Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise; The dearth of information and good sense, That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here; There forests of no meaning spread the page, In which all comprehension wanders lost; While ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... sense be capable! The pleasures of society must to him increase in an almost incalculable proportion; because, in conversation, his faculties can never want subjects on which they may be amply exercised. The dearth of conversation, which every body may have felt in certain company, is always attended with mournful countenances, and every symptom of ennui. Indeed, without the pleasures of conversation, society is reduced to meetings of people, who assemble to eat and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... of this year, a proposal was made to Garrick by the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, 'that now in the time of dearth and sickness' they should open their theatres only five nights in each ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... was off. She sat there rather disconsolate for there was a dearth of beaux for Maggie, none having arisen to fill the aching void left by the sudden departure of "Coke" Sheehan since that worthy gentleman had sought a more salubrious clime—to the consternation of both Maggie Shane and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Heaven, oh, help! Help, oh, Spirit of Earth! They are seven, thrice said they are seven; For the gods they are Bearers of Thrones, But for men they are Breeders of Dearth And the authors of sorrows and moans. They are seven, thrice said they are seven. Spirit of Heaven, oh, help! ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... contralto voice shaken by the dog's fierce show of enmity. Then she vanished into the church; and Mahan and Vivier took turns in lecturing Bruce on his shameful dearth of courtesy. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune



Words linked to "Dearth" :   scarceness, scarcity, lack, deficiency, shortage, famine, want



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