scarce - scarcely

◊ 'scarce'

Scarce is an adjective. If something that people use is scarce, very little of it is available.

Good quality land is scarce.

...a place where water is scarce.

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◊ 'rare'

You do not use scarce to say that something is not common, and is therefore interesting. The adjective you use is rare.

...a flower so rare that few botanists have ever seen it.

Diane's hobby is collecting rare books.

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◊ 'scarcely'

Scarcely is an adverb. It has a totally different meaning from scarce. You use scarcely to say that something is only just the case. Scarcely is a fairly formal word.

...side-alleys scarcely wide enough for a cat to turn round.

It was a very young man who had said this, scarcely more than a boy.

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◊ WARNING

You do not use `not' with scarcely. You do not say, for example, `I am not scarcely able to earn a living'. You say `I am scarcely able to earn a living'.

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If you use an auxiliary or modal with scarcely, you put the auxiliary or modal first. You say, for example, `I could scarcely stand'. You do not say `I scarcely could stand'.

I can scarcely remember what we ate.

There could scarcely be a less promising environment.

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Scarcely is sometimes used in longer structures to say that one thing happened immediately after another.

The noise had scarcely died away when someone started to laugh again.

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Note that you use when, not `than', in sentences like these. You do not say, for example, `The noise had scarcely died away than someone started to laugh again'.

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In stories, scarcely is sometimes put at the beginning of a sentence, followed by `had' and the subject.

Scarcely had the car drawn to a halt when armed police surrounded it.

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