Word.ws English Dictionary

rare

UK/ɹɛə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ɹɛː/

rare adjective: very uncommon; scarce.

Adjective (1)

rare (comparative rarer, superlative rarest)

  1. Very uncommon; scarce.
    • 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.2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3
  2. Small in number (but not unusual); infrequent; sparse.
    • 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...2016 March, Amanda M McLemore et al., “Suicide by Bomb, with Decapitation”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
    • 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...2025 January-February, Caterina Fede et al., “The Human Superficial Fascia: A Narrative Review”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
  3. Thin; of low density.
  4. (UK, slang) Good; enjoyable.
    • Sees her reflection in a butcher shop.
      She finds it all quite rare
      That her meat's all vanity fair.1981, Chris Difford (lyrics), Glenn Tilbrook (vocal), "Vanity Fair" (song)
  5. (US, slang) Cool; excellent.
    • 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.1990, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (TV show theme song)

Noun

rare (plural rares)

  1. A scarce or uncommon item.
    • 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.1995, George Baxter, Larry W. Smith, Mastering Magic Cards, page 116

Adjective (2)

rare (comparative rarer or more rare, superlative rarest or most rare)

  1. Particularly of meat, especially beefsteak: cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red.
    • Then Curds and Cream, the Flow'r of Country Fare, / And new-laid Eggs, which Baucis’ buſie Care / Turn’d by a gentle Fire, and roaſted rare.1717, John Dryden, “Book VIII. [The Story of Baucis and Philemon.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 285
    Antonyms:
    well done

Verb

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.
    • Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 328
  2. (US, transitive) To rear, bring up, raise.
    • 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.2013, Janet Peery, What the Thunder Said: A Novella and Stories, →ISBN

Adjective (3)

rare (comparative more rare, superlative most rare)

  1. (obsolete) Early.
    • The men, that sway / In work of those tools that so fit our state, / Are rude mechanicals, that rare and late / Work in the market-place;1614–1615, Homer, “The Sixth Book of Homer’s Odysseys”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615...

rare meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

rare in Hindi

very uncommon
विरल viral, दुर्लभ durlabh, नायाब nāyāb, नादिर nādir, कमयाब kamyāb, अप्राप्य aprāpya

rare in Tamil

அரிய, அபூர்வமான

rare in Marathi

दुर्मिळ

rare in Urdu

very uncommon
شاذ śāz
More languagesFewer languages
rare in Bengali
বিরল birôl
rare in Telugu
అరుదు arudu, దుర్లభము durlabhamu
rare in Malayalam
അസാധാരണ asādhāraṇa
rare in Kannada
ಎಲ್ಲೆಡೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ, ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕಾಣಸಿಗದ, ಮಿಗಿಲಾದ, ತೆಳುವಾದ
rare in Punjabi
ਟਾਵਾਂ ṭāvā̃, ਵਿਰਲਾ virlā
rare in Gujarati
દુર્લભ
rare in Odia
ବିରଳ, ବିରଳ |
rare in Sanskrit
विरल virala, दुर्लभ durlabha
rare in Nepali
दुर्लभ
rare in Tagalog
bihira
rare in Arabic
نَادِر nādir
rare in Malay
jarang, nadir
rare in Indonesian
jarang, langka
rare in Persian
کمیاب kamyâb, نایاب nâyâb, شاذ šâzz
rare in Vietnamese
hiếm

Examples of rare in a sentence

  • 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.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Technology: Augmentations Codex...
  • There were rare abrasions and contusions of the chest and upper extremities.2016 March, Amanda M McLemore et al., “Suicide by Bomb, with Decapitation”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
  • The deep septa are rare, thin, and oblique and have an apparent lesser organization, allowing great autonomy between superficial and deep fascia.2025 January-February, Caterina Fede et al., “The Human Superficial Fascia: A Narrative Review”, in (Please provide the book title or...

All 40 example sentences with rare

Synonyms of rare

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of rare

Forms of rare

Adjective
comparativerarer
superlativerarest
comparativemore rare
superlativemost rare
alternative UKreer
alternative UKrere
Noun
pluralrares
Verb
third-person singular presentrares
present participleraring
past participlerared
pastrared

Origin of rare

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

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 *ḱroHs- (“to mix, stir, cook”). Related to Old English hrōr (“stirring, busy, active, strong, brave”). More at rear.

Variant of rear.

Words formed from rare

Phrases with rare

Words that rhyme with rare

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rare

What does rare mean?
Rare means very uncommon; scarce.
What is rare in Hindi?
Rare in Hindi is विरल (viral), दुर्लभ (durlabh), नायाब (nāyāb). See Rare meaning in Hindi.
How do you use rare in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is rare?
Rare can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce rare?
Rare is pronounced /ɹɛə/ (UK).

Words near rare in the dictionary

  1. Raraburan
  2. rarae aves
  3. raranga
  4. Rardin
  5. Rardins
  6. rare
  7. rare animal
  8. rare animals
  9. rare as a four-leaf clover
  10. rare as hen's teeth
  11. rare as rocking horse shit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rare (page history and authors); rare (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rare (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); বিরল (Bengali) (page history and authors); അസാധാരണ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); rare (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਟਾਵਾਂ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); rare (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rare (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rare (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-rare.ogg, En-CA Rare.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rare.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rare. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.