sparsely

[spahrs-lee]

adverb

1. in a thinly distributed way; not thickly or densely.

   Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is very sparsely populated, as more than 90% of it is forested.

2. in a scanty or meager way.

   It was a large kitchen, but very sparsely equipped for cooking.

Other Word Forms

• unsparsely adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of sparsely¹

sparse ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

Dominguez’s office is sparsely decorated, but one of the few pictures on the wall is of Three Mile Island.

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An earlier one rocked Central California and Southern California in 1857, when the region was still sparsely populated.

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Mr. Ciattarelli wants to pull New Jersey out of a cap-and-trade program that raises costs for gas plants, and to open new nuclear plants in sparsely populated parts of the state.

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But these places are far from job centers, have little infrastructure and are sparsely populated, mostly by retirees and people with few financial resources.

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Besides Concow and other sparsely populated unincorporated communities in Butte County, the fire wiped out the 26,000-person town of Paradise.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• casually 
• delicately 
• easily 
• faintly www.thesaurus.com
• freely 
• gingerly 
• mildly 
• moderately 
• quietly 
• simply 
• slightly 
• softly 
• subtly 
• tenderly 
• thinly www.thesaurus.com