rara avis
Syllables: ra·ra avisUK/ˌɹɑːɹə ˈeɪvɪs//ˌɹɑɹə ˈeɪvɪs/
rara avis noun: a rare species or type of bird.
Noun
rara avis (plural rara avises or rarae aves or (obsolete) raræ aves)
- A rare species or type of bird.
- Ramsay flung open the door. "Lord Fred—damn it we are all in the lurch!", he exclaimed, […] "my rara avises have taken wing and flown off." / "What were they actually, Ramsay?" asked Newbank. / "Two black swans," replied he—"the finest creatures ever were beheld, except another of the kind that is...1825, Henrietta Rouviere Mosse, chapter III, in A Father’s Love and a Woman’s Friendship; or, The Widow and Her Daughters. […], volume V, London: […] [J. Darling] for A. K. Newman and Co. […], →OCLC...
- Over the next eight months, with practically no funding except for what I could borrow, with an afflicted conscience, from my mother, I scoured the remotest corners of Cuba for rarae aves. I hitchhiked, jumped freight trains, cajoled guajiros into lending me their mules, slept in caves or beneath...1997, Cristina García, “Rarae Aves”, in The Agüero Sisters, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 153
- A rare or unique, and thus outstanding or unusual, person or thing; a rare bird.
- That Parsons girl is quite the rara avis if you ask me.
- And yet I knovv a Man vvho is all I have here deſcribed. But a ſingle Inſtance (and I really knovv not ſuch another) is not ſufficient to juſtify us, […] Such Raræ Aves ſhould be remitted to the Epitaph-VVriter, or to ſome Poet, vvho may condeſcend to hitch him in a Diſtich, or to ſlide him into a...1749, Henry Fielding, “A Wonderful Long Chapter Concerning the Marvellous; Being Much the Longest of All Our Introductory Chapters”, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London...
rara avis meaning in Malayalam
rara avis in Malayalam
- wonder, rarity, rare bird
- അതുല്യൻ, അപൂർവ്വവ്യക്തി, അത്യപൂർവവ്യക്തി, വിചിത്രമനുഷ്യൻ, അത്യുത്തമവ്യക്തി, അസുലഭത
Examples of rara avis in a sentence
- "You are, then, a rara avis in your generation.1919 October 20, Virginia Woolf, chapter XII, in Night and Day, London: Duckworth and Company […], →OCLC, page 154:
- Hicks then added in a stage whisper: "Rara avis."2001 May 12, Robert Potts, “The poet at play”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- ‘Rara avis,’ she said. ‘That’s what you are Frankie.2008, Kate De Goldi, “Tuesday, June 6”, in The 10pm Question, Dunedin, New Zealand: Longacre Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 251:
Synonyms of rara avis
Forms of rara avis
| plural | rara avises |
|---|---|
| plural | rarae aves |
| plural (obsolete) | raræ aves |
Origin of rara avis
Unadapted borrowing from Latin rāra avis (“rare bird”). The synonym rare bird is attested earlier. The term is a quotation from Satire VI (written late 1st century – early 2nd century C.E.) of the Roman poet Juvenal: “Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno [a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan]!”. The plural form rarae aves is a learned borrowing from Latin rārae avēs.
Words that rhyme with rara avis
Questions about rara avis
- What does rara avis mean?
- Rara avis means a rare species or type of bird.
- What is rara avis in Malayalam?
- Rara avis in Malayalam is അതുല്യൻ, അപൂർവ്വവ്യക്തി, അത്യപൂർവവ്യക്തി. See Rara avis meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use rara avis in a sentence?
- "You are, then, a rara avis in your generation.
- What part of speech is rara avis?
- Rara avis is a noun.
- How do you pronounce rara avis?
- Rara avis is pronounced /ˌɹɑːɹə ˈeɪvɪs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of rara avis?
- The plural of rara avis is rara avises.
Words near rara avis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rara avis (page history and authors); rara avis (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-rara avis.oga.
Cite this entry: “rara avis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rara_avis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.