rarity

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
He was not prolific, apparently; he had however his own elegance, and his rarity is a part of it Here in Siena are a couple of dozen scattered frescoes and three or four canvases; his masterpiece, among others, an harmonious Descent from the Cross.

View all »
Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Something rare.
  2. noun The quality or state of being rare; infrequency of occurrence.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • For a rarity, the cut was elegant and simple, flattering his well-made form. —  Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel 02 - Kushiel's Chosen
  • Both sentence complexity and word rarity are known to make sentences hard to understand and remember. —  Analog April, 1971
  • Year-round sports have made the three-sport athlete a rarity, along with any semblance of an offseason. —  The Seattle Times
  • But MP3 players and expandable memory were a rarity, and even Bluetooth took some time to become accepted as a standard. —  Mobile Gazette
  • But there's one item that is still something of a rarity -- and no, I'm not talking about the expertise needed to run it. —  ZDNET.com.au
More examples »
 

Tags

rarity hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 73 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Old French rarite, rarete, French rareté = Provencal raritat, raretat = Spanish raridad = Portuguese raridade = Italian rarità = Dutch rariteit = German rarität = Danish Swedish raritet, from Latin rarita (t-)s, the state of being thin or not dense, looseness of texture, tenuity, also fewness, rarity, a rare or curious thing, especially in plural, from rarus, thin, rare: see rare.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈrærə/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a month.

Recently looked up

front-wheel · etf · Sandella · pash · calculated

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Kylee · ultimatum · pew · deadpool · sad panda