Nearby Words

sparse

[spahrs] Origin

sparse

[spahrs]
adjective, spars·er, spars·est.
1.
thinly scattered or distributed: a sparse population.
2.
not thick or dense; thin: sparse hair.
3.
scanty; meager.

Origin:
1715–25; < Latin sparsus, past participle of spargere to scatter, sparge

sparse·ly, adverb
sparse·ness, spar·si·ty [spahr-si-tee] , noun
un·sparse, adjective
un·sparse·ly, adverb
un·sparse·ness, noun


1–3. See scanty.


1–3. abundant.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Sparse is always a great word to know.
So is zedonk. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Collins
World English Dictionary
sparse (spɑːs)
 
adj
scattered or scanty; not dense
 
[C18: from Latin sparsus, from spargere to scatter]
 
'sparsely
 
adv
 
'sparseness
 
n
 
'sparsity
 
n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

sparse
1727, from L. sparsus "scattered," pp. of spargere "to scatter, spread," from PIE base *(s)pregh- "to jerk, scatter" (cf. Skt. parjanya- "rain, rain god," Avestan fra-sparega "branch, twig," lit. "that which is jerked off a tree," O.N. freknur "freckles," Swed. dial. sprygg "brisk, active," Lith. sprogti
EXPAND
"shoot, bud," O.Ir. arg "a drop").
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary

sparse definition


A sparse matrix (or vector, or array) is one in which most of the elements are zero. If storage space is more important than access speed, it may be preferable to store a sparse matrix as a list of (index, value) pairs or use some kind of hash scheme or associative memory.
(1995-01-16)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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