PAW-suh-tee
The paucity of affordable housing in the city has become a growing concern for residents.
Fun Fact
“Paucity” comes from the Latin paucus, meaning “few.” It’s often used in discussions of resources, such as food shortages, a lack of evidence, or even a paucity of ideas. A fun twist? While the word describes a shortage, the English language is anything but lacking in colorful vocabulary!
OH-ner-us
(adjective) Involving a great deal of effort, difficulty, or responsibility; oppressively burdensome.
The onerous reporting requirements buried small business owners in paperwork, leaving little time for the actual work of running their companies.
From Latin onerosus, meaning “burdensome” — derived from onus, meaning “load or burden.” The root onus entered English directly as well, giving us the phrase “the onus is on you,” meaning the burden of responsibility falls to you. Related words include exonerate — literally to remove the burden from someone — and onerously. The word entered English in the late 14th century, used primarily in legal contexts to describe obligations or duties that imposed an unreasonable weight on one party.
Fun Fact
In contract law, an “onerous contract” has a very specific and serious meaning — it refers to a contract in which the costs of fulfilling the obligations outweigh the expected benefits. When a company identifies an onerous contract on its books, accounting standards require it to be disclosed and provisioned for immediately, because it represents a guaranteed future loss. During economic downturns, onerous contract disclosures can trigger significant drops in a company’s stock price — the moment investors see the word in a financial filing, they know the company is locked into something it cannot escape without losing money either way.