A paucity is a disappointingly small amount of something. A paucity of evidence, the paucity of data, a paucity of detail.
It always takes of and is formal, appearing most in reports complaining that there is not enough to go on. The Latin means fewness, from paucus, few, which also gives the words for few in French and Spanish.
1nounpaucityA disappointingly small amount of something.
“The paucity of evidence meant the police had to let him go.”
paucity is a shortage.
Latin paucitas comes from paucus, few, the root of the modern French and Spanish words for few.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₂w-
Latin
paucitās — a small number, fewness, scarcity
Middle French
paucité
Middle English
paucete
English, today
paucity
Built from
From Middle English paucete, paucite, paucyte, partly from Middle French paucité and partly from its etymon, Latin paucitās (“a small number, fewness, scarcity”), from paucus (“few, little”). Related to few.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA