rare
adjective
- (of meat) barely cooked
adjective
- very unusual
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ɹɛə/ / /ɹɛː/ / /ɹɛɚ/
adj
Etymology: Compare rather, rath.
- 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;”
noun
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
- 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.”
verb
Etymology: Variant of rear.
- To rear, rise up, start backwards.
“Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.”
- 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.”