rarely
Americanadverb
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on rare occasions; infrequently; seldom.
I'm rarely late for appointments.
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exceptionally; in an unusual degree.
-
unusually or remarkably well; excellent.
adverb
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hardly ever; seldom
I'm rarely in town these days
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to an unusual degree; exceptionally
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dialect uncommonly well; excellently
he did rarely at market yesterday
Usage
Since rarely means hardly ever , one should not say something rarely ever happens
Etymology
Origin of rarely
Explanation
If you almost never do something, you can say you do it rarely. If you walk or bike to work most days, you could say that you rarely take the bus. Something that happens rarely happens only once in a while, or seldom. You might sigh that your town's baseball team rarely wins a game, or boast that you rarely forget a person's name once you've been introduced. The word comes from the adjective rare, "not occurring often," or "unusual," from the Old French rere, "sparse," and its root, the Latin word rarus, "thinly sown, with intervals between, or full of empty spaces."
Vocabulary lists containing rarely
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Academic Vocabulary: Core Tier 2 Words, List 9
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Rosetta Stone's Essential Academic Vocabulary: Lesson 17
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
History shows bull markets that get past their fourth year rarely throw in the towel, according to Truist Advisory Services.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Savage hopes the party will help people fall in love with queer and trans DJs who usually create music in their bedrooms and rarely get to play their music to the club.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
To accomplish this, they turned to a technique known as chemically induced proximity, which uses chemical connections to bring together molecules that normally interact only rarely, if at all.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
Press is only very rarely allowed on the grounds - meaning that photography of the wood and stone cabins and lodges that make up most of the facility are tightly controlled.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
They lived in a five-room apartment, but we rarely saw them.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
