Word.ws English Dictionary

scarcen

Syllables: scarc·enUK/ˈskɛːsən/US/ˈskɛɚsən/

scarcen verb: to become scarce.

Verb

scarcen (third-person singular simple present scarcens, present participle scarcening, simple past and past participle scarcened)

  1. (dialectal, intransitive) to become scarce
  2. (dialectal, transitive) to make scarce, meager, or lean
    • "Cap'n Ben says that the steamboats and launches are beginning to scarcen the mackerel and that they are not so plentiful this year as usual."1909, Amy Ella Blanchard, Wit's End, page 233

Forms of scarcen

third-person singular presentscarcens
present participlescarcening
past participlescarcened
pastscarcened

Origin of scarcen

From scarce + -en.

Questions about scarcen

What does scarcen mean?
Scarcen means to become scarce.
What part of speech is scarcen?
Scarcen is a verb.
How do you pronounce scarcen?
Scarcen is pronounced /ˈskɛːsən/ (UK).
What is the past tense of scarcen?
The past tense of scarcen is scarcened.

Words near scarcen in the dictionary

  1. Scarcella
  2. Scarcellas
  3. scarcely
  4. scarcement
  5. scarcements
  6. scarcen
  7. scarcened
  8. scarceness
  9. scarcening
  10. scarcens
  11. scarcer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scarcen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “scarcen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scarcen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.