rarus

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈraː.rʊs]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈraː.rus]^[1]

Forms

rārus (feminine rāra, neuter rārum, comparative rārior, superlative rārissimus or rārissumus, adverb rārō or rārē or rārenter or rāriter); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][1] It has been connected with Proto-Indo-European *h₂erH- (“to disappear”) and with Ancient Greek ἐρῆμος (erêmos, “lonely”), but Schrijver rejects all the proposals, and de Vaan finds none of them obvious.^[2][1] The TLL takes it from the root of reor “to count”, as “counted” and so “few”.^[3]

Wiktionary compares Lithuanian irti (“to dissolve”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards,^[2][4] who says that a lover who comes only on occasional nights is forgotten.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It was the opposite of dēnsus: of loose texture, porous, thin, as Lucretius' bodies with gaps between their parts and Virgil's wide-meshed nets.^[5][6] It meant spaced thinly, sparse, as Nepos' scattered trees, and spaced in time, infrequent.^[5]

From this it came to mean rare, uncommon, as Cicero's “nothing is rarer than a perfect orator”, and of exquisite quality.^[5] English rare came from it, partly through Old French, in the late 14th century, first meaning “thin, porous”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of infrequent nights.^[5][4]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of loose structure.^[5][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in the sense “rare”.^[5][4]
• late 14th century – English rare is recorded in the sense “thin, porous”.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of loose structure, porous, thin.^[5][1]
2. Thinly spaced, sparse, scattered.^[5][1]
3. Infrequent, occasional.^[5][1]
4. Uncommon, rare, scarce.^[5][1]
5. Exquisite; unusual.^[5]

Word family

• disrārō
• perrārus
• rārēfaciō
• rārēfīō
• rārescō
• rāripilus
• rāritās
• rāritūdō
• rāllus
• rārē
• rārenter
• rāriter

Related words

• English rare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com