Meaning

adjective not widely known; especially valued for its uncommonness

adjective recurring only at long intervals

adjective not widely distributed

originFrom Middle English rare, from Old French rare, rere (“rare, uncommon”), from Latin rārus (“loose, spaced apart, thin, infrequent”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁- (“friable, thin”). Displaced native English geason (“rare, scarce”) (from Middle English gesen, from Old English gǣsne); and largely displaced Middle English seld (“rare, uncommon”) (from Old English selden) and Middle English…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0