Rarely

Definition: Rarely

Rarely

Adverb

1. Not often; "we rarely met".

Date "rarely" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1200. (references)

Domain	Definitions
Tips from 1870	Usage: Rarely, Rare. "It is rarely that you hear of a prodigal youth growing into an economical man." Rarely should be rare to form the adjective attribute of the verb. Source: Slips of Speech.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Synonym: Rarely

Synonym: seldom (adv). (additional references)

Antonym: frequently (adv). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Fewness	Adverb: rarely, here and there.
Infrequency	Adverb: seldom, rarely, scarcely, hardly; not often, not much, infrequently, unfrequently, unoften; scarcely, scarcely ever, hardly ever; once in a blue moon.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	It rarely works out. (Stuart Little; writing credit: M. Night Shyamalan) People can so rarely be exchanged for goods and or services. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) They say every criminal returns to the scene of the crime, but very rarely did the good guys. (Dead to Rights; writing credit: Flint Dille; Andre Emerson) A word I rarely use. (Batman Beyond; writing credit: Hilary Bader; Stan Berkowitz) I rarely use it myself, sir. It promotes rust. (Forbidden Planet; writing credit: Irving Block; Allen Adler)
Lyrics	I rarely trust ("Deep Inside"; performing artist: Mary J. Blige) He rarely spoke, often choosing to communicate with various grunt and gurgles. ("Mephisto and Kevin"; performing artist: Primus)
Tongue Twisters	Laura and Larry rarely lull their rural roosters to sleep. (references; author: unknown) Yellow arrows frilled with reefed leaves are rarely light. (references; author: unknown)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling, 1879-1889: Unpublished, Uncollected, and Rarely Collected Poems (reference) Eocene Biodiversity - Unusual Occurrences and Rarely Sampled Habitats (TOPICS IN GEOBIOLOGY) (reference) Ethnoregional Conflict in Democracies: Mostly Ballots, Rarely Bullets (Contributions in Political Science) (reference) Feelings Women Rarely Share (reference) Psychology for Teaching: A Bear Rarely Faces the Front (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Rarely Heard Masterpieces of T (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
Francesco Guicciardini	Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.
Gaius Petronius	Beauty and wisdom are rarely conjoined.
Johann Friedrich Von Schiller	Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe	Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
Johnson	Age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible.
Oliver Wendell Holmes	Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
Oscar Wilde	The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Petrarch	Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
Thomas Jefferson	We rarely repent of having eaten too little.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Title	Author	Quote
Last Chance To See	Douglas Adams	I have a well-deserved reputation for being something of a gadget freak, and am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	you rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	With these exceptions, there was rarely seen upon his table more than boiled vegetables, or bread warmed with oil.
Walden	Thoreau, Henry David	Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		They rarely occur together. (references)
		Rarely, other Candida species. (references)
		Rarely, persons with HIV infection. (references)
Business		Such deals have been approved and consummated, but only rarely. (references)
		These firms tend to cater to their countrymen and rarely leave that operating space. (references)
		Information security is rarely considered a priority in most organizations within Mexico. (references)
Children	Pakistan	This obligation rarely is enforced. (references)
	Pakistan	Child prostitution involving boys and girls widely is known to exist but rarely is discussed. (references)
	Bangladesh	Procurers of minors rarely are prosecuted, and large numbers of child prostitutes work in brothels. (references)
Civil Liberties	Iceland	The question of first asylum rarely arises. (references)
	Togo	Teachers' salaries and students' stipends rarely are paid on time. (references)
	United Arab Emirates	Organized public gatherings require a government permit, which rarely is granted. (references)
Economic History	Barbados	Re-employment is rarely ordered. (references)
	Panama	Companies rarely issue stock on the local market. (references)
	Ecuador	High-profile cases have rarely led to convictions. (references)
Human Rights	Indonesia	Bail rarely is granted. (references)
	Vietnam	These penalties rarely are enforced. (references)
	Equatorial Guinea	Civil cases rarely come to public trial. (references)
Minorities	Netherlands	Police rarely are able to identify or arrest perpetrators. (references)
	Cameroon	Traditional indigenous religions are practiced in rural areas throughout the country but rarely are practiced publicly in cities, in part because many such religions are intrinsically local in character. (references)
	Kenya	In 1999 a presidential Commission on Ethnic Clashes, a government-appointed panel of three judges formed in 1998, submitted to President Moi its report on the cause of ethnic clashes that occurred in the Rift Valley in 1992 and 1997, the Coast province in 1997, and the areas of Molo and Laikipia in 1998. Many of the hearings were public, and witnesses often directly accused local politicians of abetting the combatants, although they rarely provided other than hearsay evidence. (references)
Political Economy	Cambodia	Politically related crimes rarely were prosecuted. (references)
	Uzbekistan	Those responsible for documented abuses rarely are punished. (references)
	CHILE	Pricing policies: The government rarely sets specific prices. (references)
Political Rights	Malaysia	Legislation proposed by the Government rarely is amended or rejected. (references)
	Portugal	Race is rarely an issue in politics; persons of minority origin have achieved political prominence. (references)
	Cameroon	Polling officials are supposed to provide a method by which voters can dispose of the unused ballots privately before exiting the closed booth, but this rarely was done in the 1996 or 1997 elections. (references)
Trade	Denmark	Eximbank financing is available but rarely, if ever, used. (references)
	Czech Rep	Most payments are made by bank transfer; checks are rarely used. (references)
	Barbados	Importing goods that meet U.S. or European standards is rarely a problem. (references)
Travel	Denmark	Interpreters are rarely required. (references)
	Tunisia	THIS LIMITATION IS RARELY ENFORCED. (references)
	Burma	Visas are rarely granted to foreign journalists. (references)
Women	Indonesia	Divorced women rarely receive alimony. (references)
	Georgia	Women rarely fill leadership positions. (references)
	Bulgaria	Spousal rape is a crime, but it rarely is prosecuted. (references)
Worker Rights	Turkmenistan	This permission rarely is granted. (references)
	Seychelles	Safety and health inspectors rarely visit job sites. (references)
	Portugal	Workers injured on the job rarely initiate lawsuits. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Phrase(s)
Julianne Moore	I do lead a very pedestrian life, I have to tell you. It's pretty regular, you know, and mostly my children are very little so that means I'm rarely out of the house. It's true. It's true.
Robert Atkins	Rarely. I may take a bite of that but basically I just have a lot of vegetables and mostly the green ones and I eat about as many vegetables as the average vegetarian, I would think.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
John Quincy Adams	1825-1829	There has, indeed, rarely been a period in the history of civilized man in which the general condition of the Christian nations has been marked so extensively by peace and prosperity.
Rutherford Hayes	1877-1881	Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful party in the contest.
Dwight Eisenhower	1953-1961	We live in a land of plenty, but rarely has this earth known such peril as today.
George W. Bush	2001-2005	Rarely has the world faced a choice more clear or consequential.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Rarely" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 99.76% of the time. "Rarely" is used about 4,196 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adverb (general)	99.76%	4,186	2,352
Noun (proper)	0.24%	10	111,207
Total	100.00%	4,196	N/A

Expression using "rarely": ad rarely. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "rarely": rarely-challenged, rarely-heard, rarely-performed, rarely-practised, rarely-run, rarely-seen, rarely-seen-before, rarely-used.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "rarely"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		rrallë (infrequently, seldom), jo rëndom, jo dendur, jashtëzakonisht (embarrassingly, enormously, exceedingly, extraordinarily, extremely, immensely, notably, on end, only, overwhelmingly, parlous, pre-eminently, rare, really, solely). (various references)

Arabic		‏نادرا (little, scarcely, seldom), ‏قلما, ‏ببراعة نادرة. (various references)

Bulgarian		рядко (infrequently, seldom), изключително (entirely, especially, exceptionally, exclusively, extraordinarily, notably, signally, uncommonly, wholly). (various references)

Chinese		稀少 (rare), 很少 (seldom). (various references)

Czech		zřídka (infrequently, seldom). (various references)

Danish		tvillingebaandene er kun sjaeldent brede nok til at man kan frembringe tydelige aetsegruber indeni dem (the twinned band is rarely of sufficient thickness to enable clear etch pits to be produced within it), i beroligede blokke finder man sjaeldent spor af blaerer i tilknytning til ghost-lines (in killed ingosts traces of blowholes are rarely found in the neighbourhood of ghots), deformationen i et givet tvaersnit i emnet er sjaelden ensartet,derved opstaar indre spaendinger (the deformation within a given section of the produCt is rarely uniform and the result is the creation of internal stresses). (various references)

Dutch		in gietblokken van gekalmeerd staal worden zelden sporen van gasblazen in de omgeving van de ghost-lines aangetroffen (in killed ingosts traces of blowholes are rarely found in the neighbourhood of ghots), de vervorming in een en dezelfde doorsnede van een produkt is zelden gelijkmatig;daardoor ontstaan inwendige spanningen (the deformation within a given section of the produCt is rarely uniform and the result is the creation of internal stresses), de tweelingbanen zijn zelden breed genoeg om daarop duidelijke etsfiguren te kunnen verkrijgen (the twinned band is rarely of sufficient thickness to enable clear etch pits to be produced within it). (various references)

Finnish		harvoin (seldom). (various references)

French		rarement. (various references)

German		selten (exceptionally, infrequent, once in a blue moon, precious, rare, scarce, seldom, seldomly, uncommon, unusual, unusually). (various references)

Greek		σπανίωσ (scarcely, seldom). (various references)

Hebrew		לעתים רחוקות (infrequently, seldom), באפן � �"יר (seldom). (various references)

Hungarian		ritkán (by the skin of one's teeth, every once in a while, infrequently, occasionally, once in a blue moon, seldom, thin, thinly). (various references)

Italian		raramente (seldom). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		滅多に (seldom). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		めったに (seldom). (various references)

Korean		희소하게. (various references)

Manx		stiark keayrt, s'anvenkey, anvennick (infrequent, seldom). (various references)

Pig Latin		arelyray.(various references)

Portuguese		raras vezes (seldom), raramente (scarcely, seldom, uncommonly), finamente, excepcionalmente (apart from, but, except, exceptive, other than, specially), excelentemente (fine), corretor de imóveis (estate tax, real estate broker, realtor). (various references)

Romanian		rareori (rare, seldom), excepţional (awful, beyond compare, exceptional, exceptionally, exceptive, extraordinary, felicitous, fine, highly satisfactory, outstanding, smashing, special, topping, uncommon, wonderfully), arareori (seldom), arar (seldom). (various references)

Russian		редко (once in a way, seldom, sparsely). (various references)

Scottish		bian (a hide, rarely of human, skin of animals). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		retko (seldom, sparsely, thinly). (various references)

Spanish		raramente (seldom), rara vez, pocas veces, con poca frecuencia, casi nunca (almost never, hardly ever, scarcely ever). (various references)

Swedish		sällan (not much, seldom). (various references)

Thai		ไม่ธรรม�"า (different, fancy, remarkable), นานๆ ครั้ง. (various references)

Turkish		seyrek olarak (far between, few and far between, infrequently), nadiren (every once in a while, far between, few and far, occasional, once in a while, seldom, uncommonly), ayda yılda bir. (various references)

Turkmen		яek-tьk, iki-яeke. (various references)

Ukranian		рідко (seldom, uncommonly), винятково (notably, only, rare). (various references)

Vietnamese		hiếm có (rare, unfrequent, unwonted), hiếm (rare, scant, uncommon), bất thường (anomalous, unaccustomed, unwonted, vagarious, whimsical), ít có đặc biệt. (various references)

Welsh		anaml (infrequent, rare, seldom). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	rare, rarius. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Misspellings
	"Rarely" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Areley, Karelya, Raheny, rapely, rarety, rarey, rarily, rarly, rately, rerly, ripely, Rugely. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "rarely" (pronounced re"rlē)
4	-e" r l ē	barely, fairly, squarely, unfairly.
3	-r l ē	austerely, barley, cavalierly, Charley, Charlie, clearly, dearly, demurely, gnarly, hourly, merely, nearly, parley, poorly, prematurely, purely, securely, severely, sincerely, sorely, surely, yearly.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-e-l-r-r-y"
	-1 letter: early, layer, leary, relay, yarer.
	-2 letters: aery, aryl, earl, eyra, lear, lyre, rale, rare, real, rear, rely, yare, year.
	-3 letters: ale, are, aye, ear, era, err, lar, lay, lea, ley, lye, ray, rya, rye, yar, yea.
	-4 letters: ae, al, ar, ay, el, er, la, re, ya, ye.
	Words containing the letters "a-e-l-r-r-y"
	+2 letters: barrenly, drearily, errantly, heraldry, literary, parleyer, raillery, readerly, retrally, varletry.
	+3 letters: artillery, bizarrely, blaeberry, drysalter, glengarry, irreality, paralyzer, parleyers, perorally, prayerful, quarterly, regularly, reliquary, skylarker, surreally, vulnerary.
	+4 letters: aberrantly, anteriorly, arboreally, arterially, barleycorn, blackberry, bricklayer, cardplayer, carpellary, cerebrally, clearstory, coralberry, creaturely, drysalters, drysaltery, hyperalert, interlayer, levorotary, literarily, loganberry, lumberyard, paralyzers, perdurably, perikaryal, preferably, preparedly, regularity, regulatory, remarkably, revelatory, skylarkers, tracklayer, unliterary.
	+5 letters: abhorrently, arrestingly, barleycorns, bricklayers, calorimetry, candleberry, cardplayers, celebratory, corporately, corporeally, daredevilry, declaratory, erratically, erythrismal, eurythermal, exploratory, farkleberry, fraternally, gallerygoer, horseplayer, intercalary, interlayers, interlunary, irrecusably, irrefutably, irregularly, irrelevancy, irremovably, irreparably, irrevocably, lammergeyer, lumberyards, marmoreally, mercenarily, mercurially, narratively, nonliterary, platyrrhine, polarimetry, polygrapher, prayerfully, preliminary, preliterary, prematurely, regardfully, regrettably, retaliatory, rewardingly, salmonberry, subliterary, superlawyer, superlunary, superplayer, swordplayer, temporarily, tracklayers, xylographer.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.