The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word SPARSITY
I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
S
P
A
R
S
I
T
Y
More clues leading to the result SPARSITY
- Spot in which abstract art is lacking quality?
- Shortness of supply of organised trips, say
- Scantiness may suggest strip, say, in resort
- Rare quality such as Bath’s spoken of
- Scattered state school initially quiet with five leaving Oxbridge, say
- Scattered property in boxes, about to leave urban area
- Dearth of pastry is appalling
- Pronounced shortage and pronounced description of Bath, for example
- Thinness of mineral found near Bhilai, say
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Scantiness" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case scantiness = sparsity.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.