sparsity
Americannoun
-
the fact or condition of being thinly scattered or distributed and not thick or dense.
The size of these rural counties and the sparsity of their populations make it more costly to administer social services.
-
the fact or quality of being small in amount or number; scantiness.
Not only is there a sparsity of rainfall in extremely arid deserts, but high evaporation rates soon remove whatever moisture it provides.
Other Word Forms
- unsparseness noun
Etymology
Origin of sparsity
First recorded in 1860–65; spars(e) ( def. ) + -ity ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mr. Jones heightens the sense of unease with a style that favors sparsity and acoustic alertness.
Another factor connects chip design to energy usage, and that’s “sparsity.”
The GP-to-patient ratio already trails the national average by 18%, it added, with recruitment hampered by "confusion around funding, poor estates and a sparsity of applications".
From BBC
They use a technique they call "hierarchical structured sparsity" to efficiently represent a wide variety of sparsity patterns that are composed of several simple sparsity patterns.
From Science Daily
Other military experts agreed that Ukraine’s record of shooting down missiles has been good, especially given the age and sparsity of Ukraine’s equipment.
From New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
