scarce · lacking

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 乏 has four strokes and indicates that something needed is insufficient.
• Basic usage: 乏しい, read とぼしい, describes a lack or weakness in resources, experience, evidence, and similar things.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• What is lacking
  • 水資源に乏しい means lacking water resources; 根拠に乏しい means poorly supported by evidence.
  • The expression before に identifies the content or aspect that is lacking.
• Insufficiency and total absence
  • 乏しい means not enough, not necessarily none at all.
  • 根拠に乏しい should not automatically be strengthened into a claim that there is absolutely no evidence.
• Poverty and deficiency
  • 貧乏, read びんぼう, refers to economic poverty; 欠乏, read けつぼう, refers to a deficiency of something needed.
  • Not every lack described by 乏しい is poverty.