scarce: [13] Scarce comes via Anglo-Norman scars, earlier escars, from Vulgar Latin *excarpsus ‘picked out’, hence ‘rare’. This was the past participle of *excarpere, an alteration of classical Latin excerpere ‘picked out. select’ (source of English excerpt [17]). And excerpere was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and carpere ‘pluck’ (source of English carpet and related to harvest). => carpet, excerpt, harvest[scarce etymology, scarce origin, 英语词源]