What's the difference between mere and scarce?

Mere


Definition:

  • (n.) A pool or lake.
  • (n.) A boundary.
  • (v. t.) To divide, limit, or bound.
  • (n.) A mare.
  • (Superl.) Unmixed; pure; entire; absolute; unqualified.
  • (Superl.) Only this, and nothing else; such, and no more; simple; bare; as, a mere boy; a mere form.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Interphase death thus involves a discrete, abrupt transition from the normal state and is not merely the consequence of progressive and degenerative changes.
  • (2) By way of major complications, merely one perforation occurred.
  • (3) Indeed, the nationalist and religious right bloc merely held steady , gaining just one seat.
  • (4) A brief review of the last decade or so of developments in health politics, policy and law suggests that health is no longer a field of mere "dynamics without change."
  • (5) The view that testes found lateral to the external ring and which could be pushed some way into the scrotum were merely retractile was questioned.
  • (6) In these three patients, laxity of the knee in flexion was so severe that posterior instability could not be corrected merely by patellar relocation.
  • (7) It has so far returned a mere $6m (£3.6m) of its relatively meagre $28m (£17.1m) budget, according to Forbes, a percentage of just 21%.
  • (8) In the literature this disease is presented merely as a metastasis.
  • (9) The plasmid-encoded activity does not merely replace the RecBCD enzyme failure but differs in several significant ways.
  • (10) Furthermore, changes between merely perceived identical parts can result in apparent depth.
  • (11) Thus, the long stalks of Sk1 or phosphate-starved caulobacters are not merely a function of their longer doubling times.
  • (12) Exogenous macromolecular DNA was able to repair, to an important degree the radiotoxic effect of 3H-thymidine on V79 cells by a mechanism other than the mere reduction of specific activity of 3H-thymidine.
  • (13) Multiple contacts between the gamma-subunit and calmodulin (delta-subunit), as indicated by our data, may help to explain why strongly denaturing conditions are required to dissociate these two subunits, whereas complexes of calmodulin with most other target enzymes can be readily dissociated by merely lowering Ca2+ to submicromolar concentrations.
  • (14) Scott insisted he was an abstract painter in the way he felt Chardin was too: the pans and fruit were uninteresting in themselves; they were merely "the means of making a picture", which was a study in space, form and colour.
  • (15) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (16) These outcomes further supported the conclusion that the contextual stimuli exerted true conditional control over conditional relations in the equivalence classes and were not merely elements of compound stimuli.
  • (17) A mere glance at the time courses shows what reaction schemes are inapplicable.
  • (18) Since the discovery of the antidepressant effects of interventions in the sleep-wake cycle, a number of hypotheses have emerged according to which disturbances in sleep physiology are not merely expressions but essential components of the pathophysiology of depression.
  • (19) In a Facebook post , the songwriter and activist claims that Swift has merely chosen sides in the battle between Google and Spotify, saying that the singer was trying to “sell this corporate power play to us as some sort of altruistic gesture in solidarity with struggling music makers”.
  • (20) It is assumed that one function of grooming behaviour may be a merely cleansing one.

Scarce


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon.
  • (superl.) Scantily supplied (with); deficient (in); -- with of.
  • (superl.) Sparing; frugal; parsimonious; stingy.
  • (adv.) Alt. of Scarcely

Example Sentences:

  • (1) During capillary growth when endothelial cells (EC) undergo extensive proliferation and migration and pericytes are scarce, hyaluronic acid (HA) levels are elevated.
  • (2) However, H2-blocking agents, such as cimetidine and ranitidine, given either intravenously or intraspinally had a scarcely measurable effect on the spinal reflex.
  • (3) But even before the reforms, half of the women coming to refuges were being turned away, so beds were already scarce.
  • (4) Three motives are found for evaluating the quality of human life: allocation of scarce medical resources, facilitating clinical decision making, and assisting patients towards autonomous decision making.
  • (5) The glory lay in the defiance, although the outcome of the tie scarcely looks promising for Arsenal when the return at Camp Nou next Tuesday is borne in mind.
  • (6) A fat emulsion when injected into tissue is scarcely taken up by the blood vascular system but is retained within the tissue over a relatively extended period, and is distributed slowly into the surrounding tissues and to the regional lymph nodes.
  • (7) To date, these new and interesting capabilities have scarcely been exploited.
  • (8) Casadevall said the pressures to commit fraud came from many sources - not least the competition for scarce funding for research.
  • (9) 1: Good news It's been a scarce commodity throughout the Osborne chancellorship, but he will have a decent amount of it to dish round the chamber – notably lower inflation and higher growth than was being forecast a short while ago.
  • (10) Necrotic cells were infiltrated with numerous red blood cells and scarce inflammatory cells.
  • (11) Lactate strongly inhibited glucose oxidation through the pyruvate dehydrogenase-catalyzed reaction and the tricarboxylic acid cycle while scarcely affecting glucose utilization by the pentose phosphate pathway.
  • (12) Scarce economic resources make cost-benefit assessment of employee training programs an important issue.
  • (13) Virtually, all unsuccessful cases of mycoses treated with some of the recently exploited antifungal drugs, albeit scarce to date, would obviously be attributable to the occurrence of secondary resistance.
  • (14) In the strictly anaerobic acetoin-utilizing bacteria P. carbinolicus, Pelobacter venetianus, Pelobacter acetylenicus, Pelobacter propionicus, Acetobacterium carbinolicum, and Clostridium magnum, the enzymes Ao:DCPIP OR, DHLTA, and DHLDH were induced during growth on acetoin, whereas they were absent or scarcely present in cells grown on a nonacetoinogenic substrate.
  • (15) The situation is more challenging for developing countries, which must add new priorities to the scarce resources of their health and social programs when they still have to deal with the problems of their younger population.
  • (16) It should be noted nevertheless that the Casale Hospital supplies a scarcely industrialized urban area, and a wide rural environment, so that resident population might be included within one of the groups partially protected by environmental and alimentary conritions against the disease.
  • (17) Though large numbers of young people can be an economic advantage, a combination of unfulfilled aspirations, scarce land and water, overcrowding in growing cities as well as inadequate infrastructure could lead to social tensions and political instability.
  • (18) Probably as a result of the failure of down-regulation, the prominent inhibition of sterol synthesis from acetate and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase observed in CHO cells is scarcely detectable in Monr-31 cells.
  • (19) The practice, and training programme for radiology in West Africa should reflect the scarce human and natural resources of West Africa, as well as the peculiar problems of the region, within the context of the acceptable pattern of health care delivery.
  • (20) The New Economics Foundation guessed that it could be anywhere between 3.4 and 8.3p ; 8.3 pence was so far beyond what anyone else forecast that I treated it as scarcely credible.