SPARSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Sparse

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/spɑrs/ Listen

adjective

Sparse adj. (compar. sparser; superl. sparsest)

Thinly scattered; set or planted here and there; not being dense or close together; as, a sparse population.

(Bot.) Placed irregularly and distantly; scattered; applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, and the like.

verb

Sparse v. t. To scatter; to disperse. (Obs.)

See images of 'Sparse'

Etymology of 'Sparse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Sparse" Quotes from Famous Books

... drapery of crimson and gold endued the maples; the wild bines and briars were covered with orange and scarlet berries; the black-plumed pine trees rose solemnly behind. A flat country, for the most part; and, as the travellers slowly receded westward, settlements became sparse and small; the grand forests closed more densely round them; solitary clearings ...

— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... since the establishment of stages. Between the great towns and in other places where the population is dense stages are preferred because they afford an additional opportunity to make a profit from passengers; but where the population is sparse and on crossroads it is generally carried on horseback. Unconnected with passengers and other objects, it can not be doubted that the mail itself may be carried in every part of our Union with nearly ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... gray stones, and other gray stones formless and grim, thrusting their rugged faces out here and there through the scanty soil. Other stones, again, enclosing the whole with a grim, protecting arm, a ragged wall, all jagged, formless, rough. The grass is long and yet sparse; here and there a few flowers cling, hardy geraniums, lychnis, and the like, but they seem strangely out of place. The stones are fallen awry, and lean toward each other as if they exchanged confidences, and speculated ...

— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... My experience with bitternut stock with only two varieties, the Strever 1 and the Champigne, has not been good. The grafts have been stunted, the stocks have tended to sprout and make vigorous growth, and the fruiting has been sparse. Neither have I had success with the pecan stock with only three varieties. The trees have been very slow coming into bearing and have made rather ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various

... disseminated in an almost imperceptible manner in the mass of granite rocks itself, without our being able to admit that there is a ramification and an interlacing of small veins.' It is plain that Raleigh got hold of unusually rich specimens of the sparse auriferous quartz. He was accused on his return of having brought his specimens from Africa, but no one suggested that they did not contain gold. No doubt much of the sparkling dust he saw in the rocks was simply iron pyrites, or some other of the minerals which to this day are ...

— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

More quotes...