rare
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: games
gaming
medicine
pathology
sciences
Etymology: 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
Inflected forms:
form: rarer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: rarest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: rares
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: rares
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: raring
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: rared
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: rared
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Very uncommon; scarce.
pos: adj
examples: Black pearls are very rare and therefore very valuable.
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.
While many material components in Andromeda are familiar, we have also discovered rarer and more valuable materials; attributable to exposure to the Scourge, or mysterious alien technology.
gloss: Small in number (but not unusual); infrequent; sparse.
pos: adj
examples: The anterior and posterior skin of the upper chest and shoulders demonstrated irregularly jagged borders with areas of soot and charring focally. The soft and bony tissues underlying the borders were markedly damaged by presumed explosive injuries. There were rare abrasions and contusions of the chest and upper extremities. The lower extremities demonstrated rare abrasions and contusions as well as severe lacerations of the anteromedial knees with underlying fractures of the distal aspects of the femora (Image 4).
Moreover, the SF [Superficial fascia] splits to surround vessels and nerves, ensuring their patency, and forms the so-called retinacula cutis, which has the function of connecting the SF to the skin (retinacula cutis superficialis, or skin ligaments) and to the deep fascia (retinacula cutis profundis), to provide a dynamic and flexible anchor of the skin to underlying tissues [16,20]. The deep septa are rare, thin, and oblique and have an apparent lesser organization, allowing great autonomy between superficial and deep fascia.
gloss: Thin; of low density.
pos: adj
gloss: Good; enjoyable.
pos: adj
tags: UK
slang
examples: Sees her reflection in a butcher shop.
She finds it all quite rare
That her meat's all vanity fair.
gloss: Cool; excellent.
pos: adj
tags: US
slang
examples: I whistled for a cab and when it came near / The license plate said ‘fresh’ and it had dice in the mirror. / If anything I could say that this cab was rare.
gloss: A scarce or uncommon item.
pos: noun
examples: Most of the time, you do this by trading low-valued rares for more valuable ones or trading uncommons for rares. Other times it's trading cards that are in print for ones that are out of print, or low-value rares for good uncommons.
gloss: To rear, rise up, start backwards.
pos: verb
tags: US
intransitive
examples: Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.
gloss: To rear, bring up, raise.
pos: verb
tags: US
transitive
examples: Here I have to say that I was walking along dark-hearted, my nose out of joint about Audie's notice of her, for just as quickly as my feelings kindled, my old envy rared.
Synonyms: dearthy
few and far between
geason
infrequent
in short supply
rare
raresome
scant
scantling
scarce
selcouth
seld
seldom
selly
superrare
uncommon
unfrequent
Antonyms: common
widespread
Related words: rarity
rarefy
rareness
For the adverb (e.g. rarely) see Thesaurus:occasionally
frequency
Derived words: in rare form
nonrare
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
rare earth element
rare-earth element
rare earth magnet
rare earth metal
rare earth mineral
rare gas
rare groove
rareish
rareness
rarepair
raresome
rare spring-sedge
rarify
semirare
superrare
ultrarare
unrare
vanishingly rare
Translations: