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say it: rer
rare is an adjective meaning "not widely known; especially valued for its uncommonness". It is pronounced /ˈɹɛɹ/ — rer. It carries 6 recorded senses.
recurring only at long intervals
“a rare appearance”
“total eclipses are rare events”
marked by an uncommon quality; especially superlative or extreme of its kind
“what is so rare as a day in June”
“a rare skill”
“an uncommon sense of humor”
“she was kind to an uncommon degree”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for rare come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.