Lewes, Feb. 2.
_Sparse_.--Permit me to refer your correspondent "C. FORBES" for a reply
to his query, p. 215. of your last Number, to the article "Americanism"
in the _Penny Cyclopædia_, the author of which observes:--
"_Sparse_ is, for any thing we know, a new word, and well applied;
the Americans say a _sparse_ instead of a scattered population; and
we think the term has a more precise meaning than scattered, and is
the proper correlative of _dense_."
In the _Imperial Dictionary_ (avowedly based upon Webster's American
work, which I cannot at this moment refer to in its original form), the
word in question is given both as an adjective and as a verb, and the
derivatives "sparsed," "sparsedly," "sparsely," and "sparseness," are
also admitted. The reference given for the origin of "sparse" is to the
Latin "_sparsus_, scattered, from _spargo_;" and the definitions are, 1.
"Thinly scattered, set or planted here and there; as, a _sparse_
population:" and, 2., as a botanical term, "not opposite, not alternate,
nor in any regular order; applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, &c."