[spahrs] 
,| 1. | thinly scattered or distributed: a sparse population. |
| 2. | not thick or dense; thin: sparse hair. |
| 3. | scanty; meager. |
| sparse (spärs) adj. spars·er, spars·est Occurring, growing, or settled at widely spaced intervals; not thick or dense. [Latin sparsus, past participle of spargere, to scatter.] sparse'ly adv., sparse'ness, spar'si·ty (spär'sĭ-tē) n. |
sparse
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)
