rare

adjective
/ɹɛə/

Very uncommon; scarce.

Example

“Black pearls are very rare and therefore very valuable.”

Other meanings

Small in number (but not unusual); infrequent; sparse.
Thin; of low density.

Example sentences

“It's rare to meet nice people like you.”
Tatoeba · TRANG · CC0
“To be understood is a rare gift.”
Tatoeba · Igider · CC0

Word history

From Latin "rārus" (loose, spaced apart, thin, infrequent).

Where this comes from

This definition is adapted from “rare” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.