Definition of "rare" []

• Infrequently occurring; uncommon: a rare event; a plant that is rare in this region. (adjective)
• Excellent; extraordinary: a rare sense of honor. (adjective)
• Thin in density: rarefied: rare air. (adjective)
• Cooked just a short time so as to retain juice and redness: a rare steak. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It's not that those rare new classics or rare new breakthrough works can't happen, it's that they are _rare_."
• ""Well," announced he, as he put down the box and pulled his adikey over his head, "I were seein 'Santa Claus th' day an 'givin' he a rare scoldin 'for passin' my maid by these two year -- a _rare_ scoldin '-- an'"
• "In his own thoroughly strange 1946 novel Life Comes to Seathorpe, Neil Bell appropriates the term "rare books" to designate members of a new, dissident literary canon."