rare

English

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ɹɛə/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ɹɛəɹ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛə(r)

Etymology 1

From Middle English rare, from Old French rare, rere (“rare, uncommon”), from Latin rārus (“loose, spaced apart, thin, infrequent”), from Proto-Indo-European *er(e)-, *rē- (“friable, thin”). Replaced native Middle English gesen (“rare, scarce”) (from Old English gǣsne), Middle English seld (“rare, uncommon”) (from Old English selden, and Middle English seldscene (“rare, rarely seen, infrequent”) (from Old English seldsēne; see seldsome).

Adjective

rare (comparative rarer, superlative rarest)

  1. Very uncommon; scarce.
    Black pearls are very rare and therefore very valuable.
    • 2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:
      Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […] The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, and individual plants are highly heterozygous and do not breed true. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better.
    Synonyms: scarce, selcouth, seld, seldsome, selly, geason, uncommon
    Antonyms: common, frequent
  2. (of a gas) Thin; of low density.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

From a dialectal variant of rear, from Middle English rere, from Old English hrēr, hrēre (“not thoroughly cooked, underdone, lightly boiled”), from hrēran (“to move, shake, agitate”), from Proto-Germanic *hrōzijaną (“to stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱera-, *ḱrā- (“to mix, stir, cook”). Related to Old English hrōr (“stirring, busy, active, strong, brave”). More at rear.

Alternative forms

Adjective

rare (comparative rarer or more rare, superlative rarest or most rare)

  1. (cooking, particularly meats) Cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red (in the case of steak or beef in the general sense).
    • Dryden
      New-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care / Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.
    Synonym: sanguinary
    Antonym: well done
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 3

Variant of rear.

Verb

rare (third-person singular simple present rares, present participle raring, simple past and past participle rared)

  1. (US, intransitive) To rear, rise up, start backwards.
    • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 328:
      Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.
  2. (US, transitive) To rear, bring up, raise.
Usage notes
  • (Discuss(+) this sense) Principal current, non-literary use is of the present participle raring with a verb in "raring to". The principal verb in that construction is go. Thus, raring to go ("eager (to start something)") is the expression in which rare is most often encountered as a verb.

Etymology 4

Compare rather, rath.

Adjective

rare (comparative more rare, superlative most rare)

  1. (obsolete) early
    • Chapman
      Rude mechanicals that rare and late / Work in the market place.

Anagrams

Danish

Adjective

rare

  1. plural and definite singular attributive of rar

Dutch

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈraː.rə/
  • Audio(file)

Adjective

rare

  1. Inflected form of raar

Noun

rare m (plural raren, diminutive rareke n)

  1. weird person
    Synonym: rare vogel

References

French

Etymology

From Latin rārus.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʁɑʁ/
  • Audio (FR)(file)

Adjective

rare (plural rares)

  1. rare

Derived terms

Further reading

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -aːʁə

Adjective

rare

  1. inflected form of rar

Ido

Adverb

rare

  1. rarely
    Antonyms: freque, ofte

Italian

Adjective

rare f pl

  1. Feminine plural of adjective raro.

Anagrams

Latin

Adjective

rāre

  1. vocative masculine singular of rārus

References

  • rare in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • rare in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French rer and Latin rārus.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈraːr(ə)/, /ˈrɛːr(ə)/

Adjective

rare

  1. airy, vacuous
  2. porous, breathable
  3. sparsely spread
  4. rare, uncommon, scarce
  5. small, little

Descendants

References

Norman

Etymology

From Latin rārus.

Adjective

rare m, f

  1. (Jersey) rare

Derived terms

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

rare

  1. inflection of rar:
    1. definite singular
    2. plural

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

rare

  1. inflection of rar:
    1. definite singular
    2. plural

Swedish

Adjective

rare

  1. absolute definite natural masculine form of rar.
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