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PlainSpell

rare

/ɹɛɚ/adjective, noun, verb

rare is spelled R-A-R-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 59 times per million words in written English, the 1,758th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, rare means “Very uncommon; scarce” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in rare?

Letters4: R-A-R-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing59 times per million words; the 1,758th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is rare?

Rare appears 59 times per million words in written English, the 1,758th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce rare?

  • UK /ɹɛə/
  • British /ɹɛː/
  • US /ɹɛɚ/

Rare has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-rare.ogg, En-CA_Rare.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with rare

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

rare vs rear0 B

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with rare?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as rare from its last stressed vowel (/ɛəɹ/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: rear.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of rare

  • rarer comparative
  • rarest superlative
  • rares plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • more rare comparative
  • most rare superlative
  • reer UK
  • rere UK
  • raring participle, present
  • rared participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does rare mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Very uncommon; scarce.

    Black pearls are very rare and therefore very valuable.

  2. 2

    Small in number (but not unusual); infrequent; sparse.

  3. 3

    Thin; of low density.

  4. 4

    UKslangGood; enjoyable.

    Sees her reflection in a butcher shop. She finds it all quite rare That her meat's all vanity fair.

  5. 5

    USslangCool; 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.

  6. 6

    Particularly of meat, especially beefsteak: cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red.

  7. 7

    obsoleteEarly.

noun

  1. 1

    A scarce or uncommon item.

verb

  1. 1

    USTo rear, rise up, start backwards.

  2. 2

    USTo rear, bring up, raise.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate rare?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of rare: r..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Rare in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchrare, peu commun (very uncommon), saignant (cooked very lightly)
Germanselten, rar (very uncommon), blutig, englisch (cooked very lightly), verdünnt (thin density gas)
Portugueseraro (very uncommon), malpassado (cooked very lightly), rarefeito (thin density gas)
Spanishraro, insólito, ralo, muy incomún (very uncommon), crudo, poco hecho (cooked very lightly)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does rare come from?

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”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after rare