The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Dearth \Dearth\, n. [OE. derthe, fr. dere. See Dear.]
   Scarcity which renders dear; want; lack; specifically, lack
   of food on account of failure of crops; famine.
   [1913 Webster]

         There came a dearth over all the land of Egypt. --Acts
                                                  vii. 11.
   [1913 Webster]

         He with her press'd, she faint with dearth. --Shak.
   [1913 Webster]

         Dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination.
                                                  --Dryden.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

dearth
    n 1: an acute insufficiency [syn: dearth, famine,
         shortage]
    2: an insufficient quantity or number [syn: dearth, paucity]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

47 Moby Thesaurus words for "dearth":
   absence, aridity, barrenness, birth control, contraception,
   default, defect, deficiency, dry womb, dryness, exiguity,
   exiguousness, family planning, famine, impotence, inadequacy,
   ineffectualness, infecundity, infertility, infrequency,
   insufficiency, lack, meagerness, miss, need, paucity,
   planned parenthood, poverty, privation, rareness, rarity,
   scant sufficiency, scantiness, scantness, scarceness, scarcity,
   shortage, sparseness, sparsity, sterileness, sterility,
   uncommonness, unfertileness, unfruitfulness, unproductiveness,
   want, withered loins



Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:

Dearth
   a scarcity of provisions (1 Kings 17). There were frequent
   dearths in Palestine. In the days of Abram there was a "famine
   in the land" (Gen. 12:10), so also in the days of Jacob (47:4,
   13). We read also of dearths in the time of the judges (Ruth
   1:1), and of the kings (2 Sam. 21:1; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38;
   8:1).

     In New Testament times there was an extensive famine in
   Palestine (Acts 11:28) in the fourth year of the reign of the
   emperor Claudius (A.D. 44 and 45).