rarely

English

Etymology

From rare +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

• enPR: râr'li
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛːli/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛəɹli/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (MLE) IPA^(key): /ɹɛli/
• (New Zealand)
  • IPA^(key): /ɹeə.liː/
    • Homophone: really
  • IPA^(key): /ɹeəɹliː/ (to distinguish from really)
• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈrɛjə(r)li/, /ˈra(r)li/, (rhotic) /rerli/
  • (for some non-rhotic speakers) Homophone: rally
• Hyphenation: rare‧ly
• Rhymes: (UK) -ɛːli, (US) -ɛəɹli

Adverb

rarely (comparative rarelier or more rarely, superlative rareliest or most rarely)

1. Not occurring at a regular interval; seldom; not often. [from 16th c.]

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:rarely

   We rarely go to the theatre.

   Rarely do you ever find an eagle this far up the river.

   • 2019 December 31, AJ Willingham, “All the trends we loved and hated in the 2010s”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     You have to give them credit, rarely does a character appeal equally to four-year-old children and middle-aged aunts posting tepid jokes and fake Oscar Wilde quotes on their timelines.

2. Unusually well; excellently. [from 16th c.]

   After all the schooling, I can finally write rarely now.

3. To a rare degree; very. [from 16th c.]

   I became a rarely good judge of the best in modern painting.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 32, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     others speake very honourably of his life and death, and in all other circumstances declare him to have beene a most excellent and rarely virtuous man.

Usage notes

It is grammatically a negative word. It therefore collocates with ever rather than never.

• Compare We rarely ever go to the theatre. with We almost never go to the theatre.

Synonyms

• barely
• hardly
• infrequently
• once in a while
• seldom
• sporadically
• scarcely
• Thesaurus:rarely

Antonyms

• frequently, usually, often

Translations

not occurring at a regular interval — see also infrequently,‎ seldom

• Arabic: قَلِيلًا (qalīlan), قَلِيلًا مَا (qalīlan mā), قَلَّمَا (qallamā), نَادِرًا (nādiran)

  Moroccan Arabic: قليل (qlīl)

• Armenian: հազվադեպ (hy) (hazvadep)
• Azerbaijani: gec-gec
• Bulgarian: рядко (bg) (rjadko)
• Catalan: rarament (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 很少 (hěnshǎo), 罕有地 (zh) (hǎnyǒu de)

• Czech: zřídka (cs)
• Danish: sjældent
• Dutch: zelden (nl)
• Esperanto: malofte
• Faroese: sjáldan
• Finnish: harvoin (fi)
• French: rarement (fr)
• German: selten (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: σπανίως (spaníōs)

• Hungarian: ritkán (hu)
• Icelandic: sjaldan (is)
• Ido: rare (io)
• Ingrian: harvaa, harvoin
• Italian: raramente (it)
• Japanese: 滅多に…ない (ja) (mettani … nai), 稀に (ja) (mare ni)
• Latin: rārē
• Latvian: reti
• Lithuanian: retai (lt)
• Macedonian: ретко (retko)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sjelden (no)

  Nynorsk: sjeldan

• Ojibwe: wiikaa
• Polish: rzadko (pl)
• Portuguese: raramente (pt)
• Romanian: rar (ro), rareori (ro)
• Russian: ре́дко (ru) (rédko), нечасто (ru) (nečasto), изредка (ru) (izredka)
• Serbo-Croatian: rijetko (sh)
• Slovene: rédko (sl)
• Spanish: rara vez, raramente (es)
• Swedish: ovanligen, sällan (sv)
• Ukrainian: рі́дко (rídko), зрі́дка (zrídka), і́нколи (uk) (ínkoly), неча́сто (nečásto)
• Uzbek: kamdan-kam (uz)
• Volapük: selediko, plödakösömiko
• Walloon: rålmint (wa)

unusually well

• Bulgarian: забележително (bg) (zabeležitelno)
• Russian: замеча́тельно (ru) (zamečátelʹno)

to a rare degree

• Bulgarian: изключително (bg) (izključitelno)
• Russian: исключи́тельно (ru) (isključítelʹno), на ре́дкость (ru) (na rédkostʹ)
• Ukrainian: напро́чуд (napróčud), ви́ключно (výključno), винятко́во (vynjatkóvo)

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “rarely”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “rarely”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• rearly