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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Infrequently occurring; uncommon: a rare event; a plant that is rare in this region.
  2. adj. Excellent; extraordinary: a rare sense of honor.
  3. adj. Thin in density: rarefied: rare air.
  4. adj. Cooked just a short time so as to retain juice and redness: a rare steak.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Thin; porous; not dense; of slight consistence; rarefied; having relatively little matter in a given volume: as, a rare substance; the rare atmosphere of high mountains.
  2. Thinly scattered; coming or occurring at wide intervals; sparse; dispersed.
  3. Very uncommon or infrequent; seldom occurring or to be found; hardly ever met with.
  4. Hence Remarkable from uncommonness; especially, uncommonly good, excellent, valuable, fine, or the like; of an excellence seldom met with.
  5. Synonyms Rare, Scarce, infrequent, unusual. Rare implies that only few of the kind exist: as, perfect diamonds are rare. Scarce properly implies a previous or usual condition of greater abundance. Rare, means that there are much fewer of a kind to be found than may be found where scarce would apply.
  6. Singular, extraordinary, incomparable, choice.
  7. Not thoroughly cooked; partly cooked; underdone: applied to meat: as, rare beef; a rare chop.
  8. Early.
  9. A dialectal form of rear.
  10. An obsolete form of roar.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Very uncommon; scarce.
  2. adj. Cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red (in the case of steak or beef in the general sense).
  3. adj. thin; of low density
  4. v. To rear, rise up, start backwards.
  5. v. To rear, bring up, raise.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Early.
  2. adj. Nearly raw; partially cooked; not thoroughly cooked; underdone.
  3. adj. Not frequent; seldom met with or occurring; unusual.
  4. adj. Of an uncommon nature; unusually excellent; valuable to a degree seldom found.
  5. adj. Thinly scattered; dispersed.
  6. adj. Characterized by wide separation of parts; of loose texture; not thick or dense; thin.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. (of meat) cooked a short time; still red inside
  2. adj. not widely distributed
  3. adj. not widely known; especially valued for its uncommonness
  4. adj. having low density
  5. adj. recurring only at long intervals
  6. adj. marked by an uncommon quality; especially superlative or extreme of its kind

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from Latin rārus.Middle English rere, lightly boiled, from Old English hrēr; see kerə- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • frogapplause I'd like to see this rare Chinese character: link. Sep 1, 2010

  • bilby "But here, in Dreamland's centre,
    No spoiler's hand may enter,
    These visions fair, this radiance rare,
    Shall never pass away.
    I see the shadows falling,
    The forms of old recalling;
    Around me tread the mighty dead,
    And slowly pass away."
    - Lewis Carroll, 'Dreamland'. Aug 9, 2008

‘rare’ has been looked up 2821 times, loved by 1 person, added to 17 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 4.