sparse
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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But when Walker and Auen plunge our cipher, Béatrice, into the world of sparse electrostatic video, the result is both harrowing and unbelievably beautiful.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026
If USC had maintained its traditional rivalry scheduling with Notre Dame this season, they would have sold out the Coliseum on Thanksgiving Saturday instead of subjecting a sparse August crowd to possible heatstroke.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026
Its dry climate and sparse vegetation leave fossil-bearing rocks exposed, while its geology contains sedimentary layers of the right age to preserve dinosaur remains.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
The decision was greeted with booing by some of the sparse crowd that remained inside the ground.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
We hiked through the sparse woods, making our way carefully down the beaten path we had created that summer, the summer of the mariposas.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
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New entries are sparser now than in the years following the Covid pandemic, when the auto industry ground to a halt, and in the aftermath of the auto industry crisis of the 2007-09 recession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
However, Williams said, there are important differences between regions where fires erupt in forests with abundant vegetation fuel and regions like Southern California, where fires often burn through sparser shrubs and grasses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2025
Since then, not much is known of her personal life and her film appearances have grown sparser.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2024
While experts had previously speculated that Gigantopithecus was driven to extinction as their preferred forest habitats became sparser, the known fossils of the ape lacked defined dates to test the idea.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 10, 2024
They wander, as we do, searching for facts to fit their sparser stock of hypotheses, but when the receptor meets its match, there is only a single thud.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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It’s a volcanic buildup of a song, from the sparsest ticking electronics to a hard-rock stomp to a full-scale pileup of guitars, drums and horns.
From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2024
In this case, the error is making a call based on the sparsest of evidence.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 15, 2021
Turnouts for elections in 2014, 2015 and 2016 ranked among the sparsest in Indiana and broke local records for all-time lows.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 23, 2018
That said, the rest of the freestyle – which lasts nearly eight minutes, set to the sparsest of backings – has little or nothing to do with Trump.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 20, 2016
It’s the sparsest bed I’ve ever seen: small and pale yellow with a sheet, a topsheet, and one pillow.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
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Vocabulary lists containing sparse
List 1
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Where the Red Fern Grows
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Beowulf: A New Telling
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