Scarce means there isn't enough of something to meet everyone's needs or wants. When fresh water becomes scarce in a drought, people have to carefully ration what little they have. When a popular toy is scarce during the holiday season, stores sell out quickly and parents struggle to find it.

The word describes anything that's hard to find or obtain because there's not much of it available. Good examples might be scarce in your essay if you haven't done enough research. Honest people might seem scarce if you've been around too many liars. A rare mineral like platinum is naturally scarce in the Earth's crust.

Scarcity is the noun form, and it's a fundamental concept in economics: nearly everything people want is scarce in some way, whether it's time, money, natural resources, or talent. This scarcity forces us to make choices about how to use what we have. A family with scarce resources has to decide carefully how to spend its money. A student with scarce time before a deadline has to prioritize which tasks matter most.

The opposite of scarce is abundant or plentiful. When something stops being scarce and becomes abundant, its value often drops: everyone wants what's scarce, but fewer people get excited about something that's everywhere.