rare
Contents
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English rare, borrowed 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).
AdjectiveEdit
rare (comparative rarer, superlative rarest)
- 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.
- (of a gas) Thin; of low density.
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
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Etymology 2Edit
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 formsEdit
AdjectiveEdit
rare (comparative rarer or more rare, superlative rarest or most rare)
- (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.
- Antonym: well done
- Dryden
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
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Etymology 3Edit
Variant of rear.
VerbEdit
rare (third-person singular simple present rares, present participle raring, simple past and past participle rared)
- (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.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 328:
- (US, transitive) To rear, bring up, raise.
Usage notesEdit
- 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 4Edit
AdjectiveEdit
rare (comparative more rare, superlative most rare)
AnagramsEdit
DanishEdit
DutchEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- raren (Brabantian)
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
rare
NounEdit
rare m (plural raren, diminutive rareke n)
- weird person
- Synonym: rare vogel
ReferencesEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed (in this form) from Latin rārus. Compare the inherited Old French rer, rere.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
rare (plural rares)
Derived termsEdit
Further readingEdit
- “rare” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
AnagramsEdit
GermanEdit
IdoEdit
ItalianEdit
LatinEdit
AdjectiveEdit
rāre
ReferencesEdit
- 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 EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Old French rer and Latin rārus.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
rare
DescendantsEdit
- English: rare
ReferencesEdit
- “rār(e (adj.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-29.