SPARSELY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sparsely mean? 

• SPARSELY (adverb)
  The adverb SPARSELY has 1 sense:

1. in a sparse way

  Familiarity information: SPARSELY used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SPARSELY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a sparse way

Context example:

his beard grew sparsely

Pertainym:

sparse (not dense)

 Context examples 

Until now, the region has been sparsely surveyed and sampled.

(Scientists return from expedition to lost continent of Zealandia, National Science Foundation)

At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole's ice is more widely, but sparsely spread.

(Ice Confirmed at the Moon's Poles, NASA)

A small, irregularly stellate, acidophilic cell of the adenohypophysis, having small, sparsely distributed secretory granules and secreting adrenocorticotropic hormone and b-endorphin, which are cleaved from a large prohormone called pro-opiomelanocortin.

(Corticotroph Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

The fact is that I could not believe it possible that the most remarkable horse in England could long remain concealed, especially in so sparsely inhabited a place as the north of Dartmoor.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The endoplasmic reticulum is not as abundant as in the sparsely granulated subtype.

(Densely Granulated Pituitary Gland Lactotroph Adenoma, NCI Thesaurus)

Astronomers have uncovered a near-record breaking supermassive black hole, weighing 17 billion suns, in an unlikely place: in the center of a galaxy in a sparsely populated area of the universe.

(Behemoth Black Hole Found in an Unlikely Place, NASA)

Soon we were past the high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country, sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again and had turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the north.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)