different between quaint vs rare

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: kw?nt, IPA^(key): /kwe?nt/, [k?we??nt]
• Rhymes: -e?nt

Etymology 1

From Middle English queynte, quoynte, from Anglo-Norman cointe, queinte and Old French cointe (“pretty, clever, knowing”), from Latin cognitus, past participle of cogn?sc? (“I know”).

Adjective

quaint (comparative quainter, superlative quaintest)

1. (obsolete) Of a person: cunning, crafty. [13th-19th c.]
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 2:

     But you, my Lord, were glad to be imploy'd, / To shew how queint an Orator you are.

2. (obsolete) Cleverly made; artfully contrived. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX:

     describe races and games, / Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, / Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, / Bases and tinsel trappings [...].

3. (now dialectal) Strange or odd; unusual. [from 14th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.4:

     Till that there entered on the other side / A straunger knight, from whence no man could reed, / In quyent disguise, full hard to be descride […].

   • 1924, Time, 17 Nov 1924:

     What none would dispute though many smiled over was the good-humored, necessary, yet quaint omission of the writer's name from the whole consideration.

4. (obsolete) Overly discriminating or needlessly meticulous; fastidious; prim. [15th-19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     She, nothing quaint / Nor 'sdeignfull of so homely fashion, / Sith brought she was now to so hard constraint, / Sate downe upon the dusty ground anon [...].

5. Pleasingly unusual; especially, having old-fashioned charm. [from 18th c.]
   • 1815, Jane Austen, Emma:

     I admire all that quaint, old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease; modern ease often disgusts me.

   • 2011, Ian Sample, The Guardian, 31 Jan 2011:

     The rock is a haven for rare wildlife, a landscape where pretty hedgerows and quaint villages are bordered by a breathtaking, craggy coastline.

Synonyms

• (overly discriminating): See also Thesaurus:fastidious

Derived terms

• quaintly
• quaintness
• quaintsome

Translations

Etymology 2

A variant of cunt (possibly as a pun).

Noun

quaint (plural quaints)

1. (archaic) The vulva. [from 14th c.]
   • c. 1390, Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Tale", Canterbury Tales:

     And trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me, / I hadde þe beste queynte þat myghte be.

   • 2003, Peter Ackroyd, The Clerkenwell Tales, p. 9:

     The rest looked on, horrified, as Clarice trussed up her habit and in open view placed her hand within her queynte crying, ‘The first house of Sunday belongs to the sun, and the second to Venus.’

Anagrams

• quinta

Middle English

Adjective

quaint

1. Alternative form of queynte

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???(?)/
• (Irish) IPA^(key): [???]
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /????/, /???/

• Rhymes: -??(r)

Etymology 1

From Middle English rare, from Old French rare, rere (“rare, uncommon”), from Latin r?rus (“loose, spaced apart, thin, infrequent”), from Proto-Indo-European *er(e)-, *r?- (“friable, thin”). Replaced native Middle English gesen (“rare, scarce”) (from Old English g?sne), Middle English seld (“rare, uncommon”) (from Old English selden), and Middle English seldscene (“rare, rarely seen, infrequent”) (from Old English selds?ne; see seldsome).

Adjective

rare (comparative rarer, superlative rarest)

1. Very uncommon; scarce.

   Synonyms: scarce, selcouth, seld, seldsome, selly, geason, uncommon; see also Thesaurus:rare

   Antonyms: common, frequent; see also Thesaurus:common
2. (of a gas) Thin; of low density.
3. (Britain, slang) Good; enjoyable.
   • 1981, Chris Difford (lyrics), Glenn Tilbrook (vocal), "Vanity Fair" (song):

     Sees her reflection in a butcher shop.

     She finds it all quite rare

     That her meat's all vanity fair.

Derived terms

• rare bird
• rare earth mineral

Related terms

• rarity

Translations

Noun

rare (plural rares)

1. (gaming) A scarce or uncommon item.
   • 1995, George Baxter, Larry W. Smith, Mastering Magic Cards (page 116)

     Most of the time, you do this by trading low-valued rares for more valuable ones or trading uncommons for rares. Other times it's trading cards that are in print for ones that are out of print, or low-value rares for good uncommons.

Etymology 2

From a dialectal variant of rear, from Middle English rere, from Old English hr?r, hr?re (“not thoroughly cooked, underdone, lightly boiled”), from hr?ran (“to move, shake, agitate”), from Proto-Germanic *hr?zijan? (“to stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *?roHs- (“to mix, stir, cook”). Related to Old English hr?r (“stirring, busy, active, strong, brave”). More at rear.

Alternative forms

• reer, rere (British)

Adjective

rare (comparative rarer or more rare, superlative rarest or most rare)

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

   Antonym: well done

Derived terms

• medium rare

Translations

Etymology 3

Variant of rear.

Verb

rare (third-person singular simple present rares, present participle raring, simple past and past participle rared)

1. (US, intransitive) To rear, rise up, start backwards.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 328:

     Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.

2. (US, transitive) To rear, bring up, raise.

Usage notes

• Principal current, non-literary use is of the present participle raring with a verb in "raring to". The principal verb in that construction is go. Thus, raring to go ("eager (to start something)") is the expression in which rare is most often encountered as a verb.

Etymology 4

Compare rather, rath.

Adjective

rare (comparative more rare, superlative most rare)

1. (obsolete) early

References

• Rare in The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

Anagrams

• arré, rear

Danish

Adjective

rare

1. plural and definite singular attributive of rar

Dutch

Alternative forms

• raren (Brabantian)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ra?.r?/

Adjective

rare

1. Inflected form of raar

Noun

rare m (plural raren, diminutive rareke n)

1. weird person

   Synonym: rare vogel

References

• [1]

French

Etymology

Borrowed (in this form) from Latin r?rus. Compare the inherited Old French rer, rere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???/

Adjective

rare (plural rares)

1. rare

Derived terms

• métal rare
• oiseau rare
• perle rare
• rareté
• rarissime
• se faire rare
• terre rare

Further reading

• “rare” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• erra

German

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a???

Adjective

rare

1. inflection of rar:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Ido

Adverb

rare

1. rarely

   Antonyms: freque, ofte

Italian

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -are

Adjective

rare

1. feminine plural of raro

Anagrams

• erra

Latin

Etymology 1

Adverb

r?r? (comparative r?rius, superlative r?rissim?)

1. thinly, sparsely, here and there
2. rarely, seldom

Etymology 2

Adjective

r?re

1. vocative masculine singular of r?rus

References

• rare in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• rare in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Middle English

Alternative forms

• rere

Etymology

From Old French rer and Latin r?rus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ra?r(?)/, /?r??r(?)/

Adjective

rare

1. airy, vacuous
2. porous, breathable
3. sparsely spread
4. rare, uncommon, scarce
5. small, little

Related terms

• rarefien

Descendants

• English: rare

References

• “r?r(e, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-29.

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin r?rus.

Adjective

rare m or f

1. (Jersey) rare

Derived terms

• rarement (“rarely”)

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

rare

1. inflection of rar:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

rare

1. inflection of rar:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural

Swedish

Adjective

rare

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of rar.

Anagrams

• rear