rare

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹɛə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɹɛəɹ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛə(r)

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).

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.

• rare bird
• rare earth mineral

• rarity

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.

• reer, rere (British)

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.

   Antonym: well done

• medium rare

Variant of rear.

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.
   • 2013, Janet Peery, What the Thunder Said: A Novella and Stories, →ISBN:

     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.

• 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.

Compare rather, rath.

rare (comparative more rare, superlative most rare)

1. (obsolete) early
   • Chapman

     Rude mechanicals that rare and late / Work in the market place.

• arré, rear

rare

1. plural and definite singular attributive of rar

• raren (Brabantian)

• IPA^(key): /ˈraː.rə/

• Audio

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rare

1. Inflected form of raar

rare m (plural raren, diminutive rareke n)

1. weird person

   Synonym: rare vogel

Borrowed (in this form) from Latin rārus. Compare the inherited Old French rer, rere.

• IPA^(key): /ʁɑʁ/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

rare (plural rares)

1. rare

• rareté
• rarissime

• “rare” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• erra

• Rhymes: -aːʁə

rare

1. inflected form of rar

rare

1. rarely

   Antonyms: freque, ofte

• Rhymes: -are

rare

1. Feminine plural of adjective raro.

• erra

rāre

1. vocative masculine singular of rārus

• 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

• rere

From Old French rer and Latin rārus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈraːr(ə)/, /ˈrɛːr(ə)/

rare

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

• English: rare

• “rār(e (adj.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-29.

Borrowed from Latin rārus.

rare m or f

1. (Jersey) rare

• rarement (“rarely”)

rare

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

rare

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

rare

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of rar.