noun

dearth

DURTH/dɜːrθ/

A lack of something needed or desired.

A dearth of food leaves the women unable to fill the waiting bowls.

A community kitchen has far too little food to fill the waiting bowls: two women face an almost empty cooking pot, a row of empty bowls, and bare food-storage shelves.

Etymology

The pieces originally suggest costliness. The link to shortage presumably arose because food becomes expensive during famine; a word first used for food scarcity then broadened to other serious shortages.

In context

Ford School of Public Policy26:15

because of the dearth of commercial investments in them so in this particular neighborhood in the Kenwood neighborhood there's a leakage of almost 200 million dollars a year because of the lack of commercial investment in poor black neighborhoods

Jobs and Housing Panel

More examples

The report suffers from a dearth of reliable data.
Despite a dearth of rain, the garden survives.
A dearth of qualified applicants delays the hiring process.

Forms

dearth · dearths

Similar words

scarcity: Scarcity stresses limited availability rather than complete absence.
shortage: Shortage often means supplies fall below a specific need.
lack: Lack can suggest complete absence, not merely insufficient amounts.