Link Centre Dictionary

rare

UK/ɹɛə/ US/ɹɛː/ common slang uk us

adjective

1.

not widely known; especially valued for its uncommonness

  • “a rare word”
  • “rare books”
Similar
2.

recurring only at long intervals

  • “a rare appearance”
  • “total eclipses are rare events”
Similar
3.

not widely distributed

  • “rare herbs”
  • “rare patches of green in the desert”
Similar
4.

marked by an uncommon quality; especially superlative or extreme of its kind

  • “what is so rare as a day in June” J.R.Lowell
  • “a rare skill”
  • “an uncommon sense of humor”
  • “she was kind to an uncommon degree”
Synonyms
Similar
5.

having low density

  • “rare gasses”
  • “lightheaded from the rarefied mountain air”
Synonyms
Similar
6.

(of meat) cooked a short time; still red inside

  • “rare roast beef”
Similar

Origin

From Middle English rare, from Old French rare, rere (“rare, uncommon”), from Latin rārus (“loose, spaced apart, thin, infrequent”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁- (“friable, thin”). Displaced native English geason (“rare, scarce”) (from Middle English gesen, from Old English gǣsne); and largely displaced Middle English seld (“rare, uncommon”) (from Old English selden) and Middle English seldscene (“rare, rarely seen, infrequent”) (from Old English seldsēne) hence modern English seld

Phrases

  • For the adverb (e.g. rarely) see Thesaurus:occasionally
  • in rare form
  • on rare form
  • rare animal
  • rare as a four-leaf clover
  • rare as hen's teeth
  • rare as rocking horse shit
  • rare bird
  • rare earth

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.