From Middle Dutch schaers. From Old Northern French scars, escars ("sparing, niggard, parsimonious, miserly, poor"; > French échars, Medieval Latin scarsus (“diminished, reduced”)), of uncertain origin. One theory is that it derives originally from a Late Latin *scarpsus, *excarpsus, a participle form of *excarpere (“take out”), from Latin ex- + carpere; yet the sense evolution is difficult to trace. Compare also Middle Dutch schaers (“a pair of shears, plowshare”), scheeren (“to shear”).
schaars (comparative schaarser, superlative meest schaars or schaarst)
| Declension of schaars | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| uninflected | schaars | |||
| inflected | schaarse | |||
| comparative | schaarser | |||
| positive | comparative | superlative | ||
| predicative/adverbial | schaars | schaarser | het schaarst het schaarste | |
| indefinite | m./f. sing. | schaarse | schaarsere | schaarste |
| n. sing. | schaars | schaarser | schaarste | |
| plural | schaarse | schaarsere | schaarste | |
| definite | schaarse | schaarsere | schaarste | |
| partitive | schaars | schaarsers | — | |