A dearth is a serious shortage of something needed. A dearth of talent, a dearth of information, no dearth of opinions.
It nearly always takes of and is now used of abstract things, though it once meant a famine and appears that way in the Bible. It is built on dear in the old sense of costly, since scarcity raises prices.
1noundearthA serious shortage of something needed.
“There is a dearth of good, affordable housing in the capital.”
dearth is a shortage.
Middle English derth is built on dear in the old sense of costly, since scarcity makes things expensive.
Proto-Germanic
*diuriþō — costliness, preciousness, honour
Proto-West Germanic
*diuriþu
Old English
*dīerþ
Middle English
derth
English, today
dearth
First attested at least as early as the late 1300s, and appearing in Tyndale’s Pentateuch (1530) as well as the Coverdale Bible (1535). From Middle English derth, derthe, derþe, probably from Old English dīerþ, dīerþu, from Proto-West Germanic diuriþu, from Proto-Germanic diuriþō (“costliness, preciousness, honour”); corresponding to dear + th. Cognate with Old Saxon diuriða (“glory, honour; preciousness”), West Frisian djoerte (“love, dearness, value, worth”), Dutch duurte (“dearness; scarcity, dearth”), Icelandic dýrð (“honour, glory”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA