Meaning & use

sparsely

adverb·Academic

In a thin or scattered way, with only a few things spread over an area.

See it in a sentence

The sparsely populated countryside had only a handful of houses per mile.

Grass grew sparsely on the rocky, sun-baked hillside.

A note on using this word

Frequently paired with "populated" or "furnished" to describe a low density of people or objects.

Words with a similar meaning

thinlyscarcely

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

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