Library / English Dictionary

SPARSE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not dense

Example:

trees were sparse

Synonyms:

sparse; thin

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

distributed (spread out or scattered about or divided up)

Derivation:

sparseness; sparsity (the property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness)

Credits

 Context examples: 

When the particles in the jet impact the interstellar medium (the sparse material filling the space between stars in M87), they create a shockwave that radiates in infrared and radio wavelengths of light but not visible light.

(The Giant Galaxy Around the Giant Black Hole, NASA)

It was the same with his hair, sparse and irregular of growth, muddy-yellow and dirty-yellow, rising on his head and sprouting out of his face in unexpected tufts and bunches, in appearance like clumped and wind-blown grain.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

You see, said he, whisking round, and showing one little strip where a line of scattered hairs, like the last survivors in some fatal field, still barely held their own against the fate which had fallen upon their comrades; these locks need some little oiling and curling, for I doubt not that if you look slantwise at my head, when the light is good, you will yourself perceive that there are places where the hair is sparse.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Clinical signs at birth include recurrent respiratory infections, poor feeding, hypotonia, joint laxity and characteristic shortened fifth digits with hypoplastic or absent nails and craniofacial appearance: microcephaly, wide nose and lips, sparse scalp hair but thick eyebrows and eyelashes.

(Coffin-Siris Syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)

In a sparse distributed scheme, each memory would be coded by the activity of a small proportion of neurons, and each neuron would contribute to a few memories.

(Storing memories of recent events, NIH)

His eyes leaked continuously with excitement and when I took the bag and umbrella from his hands he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse grey beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)