rara avis

/[ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is]/ phrase

The verdict

“rara avis” is outside the top-ranked Spanish vocabulary, used as a phrase — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency Spanish
9
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Persona o cosa conceptuada como singular excepción de una regla cualquiera.

Key facts for rara avis
PropertyValue
Headwordrara avis
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechPhrase
IPA[ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is]
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “rara avis” sits in Spanish frequency

rara avis falls outside the top-100,000 ranked Spanish words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The Spanish entry for rara avis is 9 letters long, classified as a phrase, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is]. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Persona o cosa conceptuada como singular excepción de una regla cualquiera.".

No misspelling variants are generated for rara avis in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable Spanish patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct Spanish form is rara avis, spelled R-A-R-A- -A-V-I-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Persona o cosa conceptuada como singular excepción de una regla cualquiera.

Synonyms

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "rara avis"?
"rara avis" is spelled R-A-R-A- -A-V-I-S. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is].
What does "rara avis" mean?
As a phrase, "rara avis" means: Persona o cosa conceptuada como singular excepción de una regla cualquiera.
How do you pronounce "rara avis"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rara avis" is [ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "rara avis" come from?
"rara avis" is a Spanish word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “rara avis”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct Spanish spelling is R-A-R-A- -A-V-I-S — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as [ˈraɾa ˈaβ̞is] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words

Nearby Spanish words

Other entries that begin with the letter R in our Spanish index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.